And Innocents
by Gandalf3213
Summary: When two boys open fire in McKinley, the Glee club has minutes to save themselves. And if some fall during the tragedy, can they recover? Is there a boundry to forgiveness? A time and a place for heroes? A limit for grief?
1. Don't Do Sadness

_School Shooting Leaves 20 Dead, More Wounded_

The town of Lima, Ohio, was rocked yesterday when students Levin and Leads opened fire at McKinley High School before killing themselves.

"You just don't expect something like this," Said Officer Kelvin, head of Lima's police force. "There are some guys on my force with kids in that school…some guys who have been on the beat with me for twenty years, and they were coming out of that school sick."

Bently, another officer, said, "It's not really the blood that gets to you…I mean, it is the blood. That never stops being bad. But then you see that it came out of some kid. And then you think, "My God, that could be my kid." That's when you have to get some air. Because these things do happen to you."

Preliminary reports say that two members of the teaching staff are among those who died in the tragedy that also took the lives of at least eighteen students. A dozen more remain in critical condition at Lima Memorial Hospital.

The shooting started at 1:55 in the afternoon near the gym lockers. Many were killed in the hallways after fleeing from the sound of gunshots.

Principal Figgins commented, "I cannot believe this happened in my school. I thought Ohio was safe…I had conversations with Bradley [Levin] and Mitchell [Leads] myself." In response to a question, he threw up his hands, "No, no of course there were no suicidal or homicidal tendencies. Do you think I would have endangered the lives of hundreds of students by lettering people with homicidal tendencies remain at the school?"

At the end of the interview, Figgins added, "I am proud of the actions of the teaching staff…Sue Sylvester and Will Schuester especially…terrible…terrible…."

The day ended with many residents of Lima congregating at the hospital. High school students who were not injured in the rampage passed out candles. Rachel Berry, a student who began a chorus of impromptu singing, seemed shell-shocked when asked about what happened.

"I just can't believe they're all gone." She said,

"I can't believe they're all dead."

**Review?**


	2. I Don't Like Mondays

_"__You don't need __no__ gun control. You know what you need? __Bullet control.__ I think all bullets should cost $5000. You know why? If a bullet cost $5000 there'd be no more innocent bystanders.__" __**Bowling **__**For**__** Columbine**_

.***.

**1:30 PM**

"Hey, man, you okay?" Finn reached out a hand to steady Puck as he stumbled against the lockers while pulling his gym shirt over his head.

"Do I look okay?" Puck snapped, jerking away from Finn's touch. He tugged the shirt on, threw his school shirt into his locker, and slammed it closed with a groan of frustration that barely masked his moan of pain. "I can't remember the last time I was this sore!"

Their first game against Middleton on Friday had actually ended in a tie, but that's hadn't been enough for Coach Beaste. Maybe she still had some crazy vendetta against Mr. Schue or maybe she was just crazy, but she'd called an all-day practice on Saturday (incidentally, the same day Glee was due to have its first fall rehearsal) and proceeded to work them into the ground. Puck had escaped with bruised ribs and sore ego.

Finn regarded him carefully. "You know what? Let's skip gym."

Puck's expression was not quite necessary for Finn to realize that he'd suggested skipping out on gym exactly once, and that was when he'd just learned Quinn was pregnant and he thought he needed to go job hunting right away. But it was only the third week of school, and their gym teacher, Lee, who coached girls varsity soccer, totally had a thing for Puck, anyway. No way were they going to be marked down for cutting.

"I'm good with that." Puck said, not bothering to change out of his gym shirt and risk irritating his ribs further. "Where do you want to go?"

"I think the girls have lunch this period. We can skip out of school early and get some burgers."

Puck looked at him as if he had two heads. Ditching gym was one thing, but Finn had Trig after this, not to mention Glee rehearsal and football practice. "Dude, welcome to the dark side of Senioritis!"

"We're Juniors, Puck."

Puck snorted, "Man, I caught Senioritis as a Freshman. You should be lucky you caught it this late."

They left the locker room, heading towards Quinn, Brittney, and Santana, not noticing Levin and Leads, jocks they played basketball with, people who they would sometimes eat with and participate in dumpster diving with. People who had guns in their gym bags, ready to blow everyone's world apart.

.***.

"Kurt! Are you okay?" Mercedes enveloped Kurt in a hug. She was so annoyed that the first time she saw her best friend was during eleventh period lunch, but at least they'd get a full forty minutes of talking in.

Kurt, who'd held it together pretty well for the whole school day, felt his whole self sink at the sight of her. When he lifted his eyes to meet Mercedes, he flinched slightly, then shook his head. "Who told you?"

"Mike. He was in the theater. Thought someone ought to know." Mercedes was talking fast, and there was an edge to her voice, but it wasn't aimed at Kurt, not really. Kurt was loud, confident in his body and with himself, happy to be alive and vital. But there was another side to him, a quieter, self-conscious side, the side that would hide the bruises that came with dumpster-diving and being tripped in the hallway. That was the side Mercedes was worried about now.

When Kurt had hooked up with one of the only other "out" gay guys in the school, Glee hadn't been too surprised. The club had actually been pretty positive, from Mercedes' promise to hit the mall with him to buy some new clothes to Rachel's self-serving admission that she "knew it would happen all along."

Kurt had been…happy wasn't the word to describe it. He was alternately nervous or excited, pleased or anxious. He'd changed three times before his date, and for someone who was usually so fashion-savvy, that itself was a look into his compromised psyche.

Mercedes didn't quite know what to say, like she didn't quite know what to say when she saw Kurt using make-up to hide a black eye, or bandaging a cut on his cheek. Sure, she and the rest of Glee shared in the slushies, the humiliation, but the taunts, the threats, the dumpster-diving and punches, seemed to be exclusively for Kurt.

"So the date didn't go well?" Mercedes asked over the dull roar of the cafeteria, and at least elicited a hollow sort of laugh.

"You could say that." Kurt poked at his food, which looked like it could be the next weapon of mass destruction, before laying his fork aside. "I mean…I met up with Eric. Very cool. We laughed, got some popcorn…he picked a fairly ingenious spin on that awful vampire movie and we talked through the previews."

It was not in Mercedes' nature to be this patient, and she kept wanting to press the fast-forward button to get to those awful, juicy details. She forced herself to wait, though, because this was her Kurt.

"He kissed me." Kurt finally spilled, "At the end of the movie. As the lights were coming back up."

Mercedes fairly squealed. Aside from the whole 'you busted my heart' fiasco last year, she had been the biggest member of his gay fan club and had been rooting for this relationship to be a success. Her smile slipped, though, as Kurt continued. _This_ was the story that Mike had told her hurriedly in home room.

"And this old woman right behind us started…_screaming_. Or screeching, actually. Everyone looked at us and this woman just let us have it. Said we were committing a sin, and it was awful that we'd do it in a public place, that she hoped we'd burn in hell…"

His voice caught, and Mercedes didn't blame him. Did people actually do this? Adults? Were there actually those out there who would say stuff like that to Kurt, who was fierce and bitingly sarcastic but also sweet, kind, harmless? She thought bigotry began and ended in high school, that the hockey player's taunts and hazing was the most of our worries. "Oh Kurt…"

Kurt blinked hard, and in a surreal moment Mercedes realized then that his eyes carried a film of tears. When he spoke though, his voice was stronger than before, and, man, did Mercedes gave him credit for that. "No one really said anything, just let her go at us. When we left, Eric was so shaken up…I thought he was going to start crying." Kurt shook his head, sighed, looked up at the ceiling as if praying for this nightmare that was his life to end.

"He said he didn't want to go out anymore. That it wasn't me, or anything, it's just that he didn't think Lima could handle us." Kurt thought about it for a moment. "He's probably right."

"No, Kurt!" Mercedes said, in rare form over the words that woman had said so ignorantly, out of her own concern for Kurt's well-being. "You have to talk to Eric," she said, passionately, "At least talk about last night with him. Maybe you're right. Maybe Lima isn't ready for you guys. But _you_ shouldn't have to change!"

"Yeah, I should make the whole world change for me," There was Kurt's tentative smile, though, that beginning of diva bitchiness that made them such good friends.

"Damn straight!" Mercedes leaned forward, as if giving out confidential information. "Artie says that Eric practices in the rehearsal room during lunch. Alone." She winked and nudged, practically pushing him out the doors. When he left, though, he was smiling.

Mercedes didn't know she'd just sent him out to be shot. She didn't know that, the next time she'd see Kurt, he'd have blood all over his pristine Cheerioes uniform, one of the many heroes of the hour.

**We're not going to update every day. We just can't keep up with a schedule like that. But we promise - every Monday, like clockwork. Set your watches to us.**

**And enjoy, because this is life people, and _that's_ what makes it so damn sad.**


	3. Shot Through the Heart

_"In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist...In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered...You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem. In nineteen minutes you can stop the world or just jump off of it. In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge." **Jodi Picoult**_

.***.

**1:45**

Mike hated Spanish class without Tina.

Well, mostly he hated Spanish (he was already bilingual, for God's sake. And between Mandarin and English he was pretty sure he could communicate with at least half the world). While Mr. Schue was a good enough teacher, he found the class missing something without Tina's notes every two minutes about what they were going to do after Glee, movies she liked, girls she hated, things she'd done on dares.

For a quiet girl, Tina was surprisingly diverse in her experiences.

But without Tina, Spanish seemed to creep by. Mike tapped his pencil on his desk, the rhythm part of a new Glee song, and soon Artie was humming it. Then Mike just had to add the melody on top and soon they had a whole blues thing going on in the back of the room.

"Hey guys?" Schue's voice carried over the class and it was only then that Mike realized how loud they'd gotten. He and Artie turned red and the class snickered, but Schue seemed mildly amused by their display.

"Since you have so much energy, maybe you two can run down to the Language office for me. I left a stack of packets on the desk." Mr. Schue smiled, thinking he'd given the two an opportunity to work off a little of their nervous energy, an excuse to be away from the constant drone of classes. He didn't know that he was sending them into a fire range.

And the two boys happily headed towards the door, sealing their fates.

.***.

Sue Sylvester was enraged.

First, her budget for the seventeen ponies, which she'd ordered specifically so that they could compete in the heavy-duty Southern circuit, had been given to the swim team (like they needed a _pool_.) Then she'd arrived to practice to find that one of the only girls who could accomplish a double back spring would be gone for a week because her grandmother had chosen to very inconveniently kick the bucket.

And, on top of it all, Schue had dodged her during his free period, so she didn't get in her quota of snide hair comments for the day. A total bust.

She spent most of her morning calling out different Cheerios and telling them their faults (Hummel, you can be a queen everywhere but my practice, go out and find a Y chromosome. Santana, your new boobs are going to take out Granger's eye…) and even that didn't boost her mood as much as it usually did.

She walked out of her office when she remembered Brittney coming over to her after learning the new routine they were using for Christmas and asked her, seriously, that if Christians celebrated Christmas, did Hanukaians celebrate Hanukah?

The door made a dull _thud_ sound as it closed behind her. She needed to make fun of Schuester's hair or blackmail Figgins again for fun. Anything to get her out of this funk that the beginning of the school year always seemed to bring on her. So many friggin' teenagers, so little time to torture them all.

There should just be a mass pep rally, where the main event was Sue and she was listing every flaw she could think of about any given person (you know what was the matter with Einstein? He was German, and obviously working for the Nazis in the years leading up to World War II. The Manhattan Project was just a con to get the US on his side. How anyone bought into that Theory of Relativity was beyond her.) Maybe after that she would feel more like herself.

Well, that and about two dozen hair comments. Seriously, teasing Schue was slowly becoming the highlight of her day.

"Coach Sylvester?" Becky's sing-song lisp, so like her sister's, made her turn around with a half-smile. She would visit her sister today. Nothing got her out of a foul mood like seeing Jean, and until then she might just toss a few nice comments at the one Cheerio who she could actually stand.

Yeah, the day was looking a lot better until the bullet came speeding towards her three minutes later.

.***.

Rachel looked around before discreetly placing a gold star on the corner of her paper. For some reason, her classmates seemed to think that the gold stars were bribing the teachers in some way, like if she gave them a sticker they'd give her an A. Although…and this was odd…it seemed like some of the teachers didn't like her over-the-top participation. Some rolled their eyes when her hand shot up in the air – always with the correct answer. Some pointedly ignored her, which she found rude. She knew that she was usually the only person with her hand up, but that was because the other kids didn't care enough to know the right answer.

Of course, it didn't help that Language & Comp was the only class she had with no other Glee members. While she wasn't the most popular, even amongst her own clique, they would at least _look_ at her.

Sighing, she moved the test paper to the left-hand corner of her desk, gold star twinkling in the light. It was kind of sad that her classmates were such Neanderthals that they hadn't finished the vocab test yet – there were words like _bonfire_ on it, for goodness' sake. But that's okay, because it gave her time to work on her music.

She was past the whole singing thing now. Not really _past _it, like over it, more like she was just better than it. She'd mastered singing, and the only thing above that, as far as she could tell, was writing the songs.

So she was writing her own musical, which would be called either _The Rachel Berry Show_ or _Me!_ With an exclamation point _a la_ Oliver!

The pokes in her back were from one of the jocks, telling her to shut the hell up with the humming (like anyone could compose a song without humming it first) but she ignored them. There were always obstacles in the way of stardom, and hers were jealous teenagers.

She would not be a Lima Loser, though. She was getting out of this town, going on to bigger and better things, and no one was going to get in her way.

No one, that is, except for Leads and Levin, down the hall and armed with guns and hate, ready to take down everyone in their path.

**Did that 30 second preview of this week's episode make anyone else feel like they were living to watch Glee?**

**No? Maybe it's just us.**


	4. All You Need Is Love

_"The truth is a moral compass can only point you in the right direction, it can't make you go there. Our culture preaches that you shouldn't be ashamed of anything you do anymore…so without a conscience, there's nothing to stop you from killing someone." **Grissom, CSI**_

.***.

**1:53 PM**

Kurt found Eric in the band room (the one that doubled as the Glee room after school). As promised, he was alone, playing the drum cadence that he'd re-written. For a moment Kurt just looked at him, feeling the same flutter in his chest as he'd felt two weeks ago, when he'd walked into Kurt's life.

Eric was beautiful, with silky blond hair and serious grey eyes and long, tanned fingers. And the best thing was, he thought Kurt was beautiful too, and had told him so.

It could be a good romance. It could work out – maybe with a few bumps and bruises from the jocks, maybe with emotional trauma from eighty-something-year-old women. But it could work out. They were both intelligent, musical people. Eric was a drummer with a quick mind and enough sense to tell Kurt when he was going to do something over-the-top.

It could be a good romance, if they were given half a chance to get it started.

Kurt cleared his throat and entered the room. "Eric," he said, his voice jumping an octave as it always did when he was nervous. "We need to talk."

Eric had the decency to look embarrassed. "Look, Kurt, I'm sorry for avoiding you all weekend. I was just…really freaked out."

"I was, too, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore it. There's no going back in the closet now." Kurt folded his arms across his chest tight enough to feel his heart beat through his sweater.

"I'm not like you, Kurt." Eric began putting away his tenor, pushing the drum into his case and throwing the sticks on top so they made a quiet _taptap_ sound as they hit the heads. "I'm not really _out _of the closet. I told my family last week that I was going on a date with a boy and my brother hit me. My mom started crying. I think she wants to get me exorcized." He took a shuddering breath, lugging the huge case back to the closet where the band instruments were stowed.

Halfway there he stopped and turned around, a pleading look in his grey eyes. "I really like you, Kurt. You're, like, the most confident guy I've ever met. You're so sure of yourself, and so brave, and I'm just…not."

It was when he put the drum in the cabinet that the first shots rang out. The two paused for an instant, listening to two more shots, then a dozen more in quick succession. Screams began, and didn't end for hours, days.

It was Kurt who acted first. Kurt who reached out and pushed Eric into the closet after his drum, using one of the discarded sticks to shut the cabinet tight. He did it because he knew instinctively that the shooter would come into the room. He did it because there was no use for both of them to die.

And, as he turned around to find himself face-to-face with Lead's gun, able to hear Eric banging on the closet door behind him, able to hear the blood pounding in his ears, he knew that he did it for love.

.***.

Artie was there when the guns were drawn out of the bags. He was there to see the beginning of the rampage. He was there to see the end of Michael Chang's life.

They had been walking back from the Language office, Mike carrying the packets and daring Artie to do wheelies in the empty hallway. They'd gone near the gym, mostly because they wanted to draw out their walk. Neither boy was exactly eager to go back to Spanish.

Mike looked down at Artie, who was tapping his fingers on the arms of his chair, tongue poking out of his mouth just slightly as he popped a perfect wheelie. This was going to be awkward. "Hey, Artie," he said, and he stopped. If he hadn't stopped, if he hadn't felt the need to talk to Artie about Tina right at that moment, he probably would have lived. "I was thinking about asking Tina to Homecoming."

"Seeing as how she's your girlfriend, I'm going to say she's probably expecting an invitation. Don't expect her to go, though. She'll like you a whole lot more if you do the anti-Homecoming thing. Dinner at the diner and a crappy movie, that kind of thing." It took a lot for Artie to force the words out. It wasn't that he thought Mike was a bad person. He didn't. It was just that Artie was jealous like nobody's business, and kind of hating the fact that he hadn't been born Asian.

Mike seemed to sense that, though (how could he not? Artie wasn't exactly working to keep his residual feelings on the down-low.) He took a step forward, stopped again, not quite sure of how to talk about this. Conversations about feelings between two guys were always awkward, but when they were talking about their feelings for a girl they both liked…well, things might have been liable to get violent, if either of them was the violent type.

Mike didn't get any more words out, not then, and he only uttered about a dozen in all before he died in the hospital hours later. He didn't say anything else because at that moment the door behind him, the one that led into the gym, opened, and Leads and Levin came out carrying guns.

In the aftermath of the massacre, a bone of contention would be about the victims. Were they pre-chosen, people Leads and Levin had beefs with? Or was it simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Mike was in the latter category. He was quiet, mild-mannered even among his own small group of friends. He wasn't a bully. He had actually been Lead's lab partner for Freshman year Biology, and they'd gotten on fine.

But when the first shot rang out, it hit him square in the chest. The second hit him in the stomach. The third hit Artie in the leg.

And then Leads and Levin took off down the hallway, leaving ruined lives in their wake.

**Ya'll get this chapter early, thanks to Mr. Christopher Columbus and the fact that colleges want us to actually see them in person (read: road trip). So...happy Columbus Day.**

**Okay, we know that Sam is probably going to end up with Kurt (and Sam is in the story, we promise) but...not in this version. Kurt gets Eric, because he's cute, and we don't know enough about Sam to do him justice.**

**Thanks for all the amazing reviews (especially those that commented on 19 Minutes. Jodi Picoult is our favorite author, too). Please keep them coming.**


	5. Bad Day

_"Carry on my wayward son. There'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest. Don't you cry no more." **Kansas**_

.***.

**Newspaper Excerpts**

_Heroes of McKinley High Shooting: Arthur Abrams_

Arthur "Artie" Abrams is a sixteen-year-old paraplegic whose handicap saved his life and the lives of two of his fellow classmates.

For Artie, as for all the others attending McKinley, the day started off normally. He caught a ride to school from his dad, saw his friends before first period, and was looking forward to Glee, his favorite after-school club.

"I was in Spanish with Mr. Schue," Artie told reporters at the hospital after the bullet had been taken out of his leg. "Me and Mike were sent to pick up some packets for him. We were goofing off, going the long way back to class…we passed the gym…Mike was shot twice, they shot me once, and then they just took off."

The shock of having a bullet embedded in his knee cap would be enough to knock almost anyone unconscious, but Artie hasn't been able to feel anything below his waist since he was eight years old.

"I barely noticed that I was shot. I mean, it didn't hurt, or anything, and Mike…" Artie and Mike Chang both participated in the Glee club. "He was dying. I had to do something."

Artie, bleeding from a bullet in his leg, lifted Mike onto his lap and kept him in place while rolling out of the school. On the way, he encountered other victims from the shooting and fellow Glee members Santana Lopez, Brittney Morris, and Quinn Fabray. All three had been shot in either the chest or side.

"Finn and Puck were there, too, but they were trying to help everyone else out. It was complete chaos, and they had the girls. I was on my way out with Mike, and they asked if I could take any more people. Santana and Brittney were completely out of it, but Quinn could walk and she pushed me out."

When he emerged from the school, he had three bodies of his friends on top of him and was ready to go back in to help search for more injured people. When an ambulance arrived to take the others to the hospital, Artie got in but wouldn't allow doctors to look at him for several hours.

"It didn't even hurt, and there were so many other people…Mike and Brittney…I couldn't take up the doctors' time."

Artie's heroic actions saved the lives of Quinn Fabray and Santana Lopez. Sadly, Mike Chang and Brittney Peirce are among those students who were killed in the McKinley shooting.

_Heroes of McKinley High School Shooting: William Schuester_

Known simply as "Schue" by his students, the Spanish teacher and Glee club advisor was one of the two teachers who were killed in the shooting.

"He was the type of teacher who really cared about you." Said Finn Hudson. "He would, like, give you his house number if he knew you were having a rough time and he would really listen to what you had to say, and he tried to help whenever he could." Here Finn paused to collect himself. "He was just a really great person."

Mr. Schuester was teaching third year Spanish when the shooting started.

"We all tried to get up," said Trevor Hill, who was in the classroom. "A ton of kids were heading for the door, pushing and shoving. Schue got to the front of the pack, ready to lead us out. That's when [Levin] got there."

According to witnesses, Levin seemed to be going towards the atrium when he was stopped by Schuester's door flying open. Levin paused, looking at the room full of scared students.

"He _smiled_." One girl shuddered, "This really creepy thing, nasty...like a Jack-O-Lantern grin. And then he kind of made like he was going to come into the room. It would have been easy, you know, like shooting fish in a barrel."

That's when Schuester reportedly flung up his arms, Christ-like, shielding the room from the gun as round after round went off. He was hit seven times, including once to the temple. He died instantly.

"He went down like that, saving everyone." Another student said, "Levin got scared, I guess, from all the blood, or maybe just because he saw someone acting like a decent human being. Anyway, he took off after that. Mr. Schuester saved us all."

**...**

**Sad story and no Glee. What will we do until the Rocky Horror episode comes on? BTW: Anyone else having a double feature Rocky Horror/Glee marathon next week? Maybe it's just us.**

**Anyways, please review.**


	6. Hell's Bells

_A thousand enemies outside the house are better than one within. **Arab Proverb**_

.***.

**1:54**

Finn and Puck would have missed the whole thing if they hadn't been waiting for the girls.

Quinn, Santana, and Brittney were running the latest Cheerio bake sale and couldn't leave until they'd threatened two other girls on pain of death into taking over the booth. Then they had to go to the bathroom, leaving Puck and Finn loitering outside.

"C'mon, we're going to the diner anyway. It's not like it's not going to have bathrooms."

"They're girls, man, it's like, their thing." Puck leaned against the wall, managing to look both nonchalant and menacing at the same time. "I'm just so glad to be out of here."

"It's a Monday thing," Finn said, shrugging. Sure, he felt a little bad about ditching Glee, and more than a little bad about skipping out of school without telling Rachel, but she had to understand that this was a spur-of-the-moment thing, and Joe's was a jock hangout. Rachel just wouldn't fit in, and she was so bad at blending into the crowd…

The girls came out of the bathroom, supposedly having re-applied makeup, though they all looked just the same as they had when they went in. "Let's go," Quinn said, flipping her hair.

All five stopped dead and just looked at each other when the rapid fire of a gunshot blasted somewhere nearby. Puck was the first one who spoke, "Must be a movie."

"Yeah," Quinn said, still looking in the direction of the noise. "Yeah, I think sophomores are doing the Civil War -"

Before she could get any further, a bullet pierced her side and she cried out in agony. Two more bullets flew down the hallway, one hitting Brittney square in the chest, the other opening a cut near Santana's hips. Finn and Puck leapt out of the way and more bullets embedded themselves in the wall, in the floor.

Leads ran by and eyed the boys, scared shitless but still intact. He brought up his gun to shoot then seemed to think better of it. He turned to the girls, who were screaming, blood spurting from their wounds. "Long live the Queens!" He hissed, so much venom in his voice that for a moment Puck and Finn forgot they could move, take the gun from his hands, end this.

By the time they remembered their limbs, Leads was gone and Brittney especially seemed to be in a bad way.

Puck looked at Finn. As QB, he usually kept his head in bad situations. Finn was just staring at the girls, mouth open in surprise, as if they were merely dressed up for Halloween and had pulled one over on him. "Finn! C'mon, man!" Puck bent towards Santana, ready to haul her into his arms.

"Leads…Puck, we need to do something…" Finn looked over his shoulder. Leads had gone in the direction of the Glee room, the band room. People could be in there, trapped between four walls and a hard place.

"We need to get them out!" Puck said, drawing Santana over his shoulders. "They're shot, Finn! They could die!"

"And Leads can kill a ton of other people, Puck!" Rachel went down to the Glee room at odd times. When she finished papers early, when she had five minutes to spare. She could be the one who was cornered, and she could bleed out without other people knowing.

Kids were starting to pour out of classrooms, pushing madly, blindly running for the doors, looking for a way out of this school that had become a war zone. Finn moved so he was protecting Quinn and Brittney, but he was still staring Puck down.

"We can do something!"

"Yeah, we can, we can save them!" Puck shouted back, gesturing at the girls trying to make himself heard over the frightened cries of kids.

Finn looked over Puck's shoulder. "Artie!" Artie was rolling down the hallway towards them, something bulky draped across his legs. When he got closer, Finn could see that it was Mike, and he'd been shot.

The sight of them assured Finn that no one was safe, that this was real. "Artie!" He called, reaching out a hand to grab the wheelchair.

Artie seemed to take a second to zero in on him. "Finn? Finn! I need help…Mike was shot…there are people with guns in the school!" As he spoke, there were more shots, more screams of fear and agony.

Puck had already guessed Finn's plan and picked up Santana again. "Can you take a few more passengers?"

"What?" Artie looked down at the girls, their red uniforms spattered with redder blood, and paled. "Yeah, yeah, pile them on…but…" His protestations were lost as first Santana, then Brittney were laid carefully on top of Mike.

"Quinn?" Finn knelt next to his ex-girlfriend, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. It had only been forty seconds or so since she'd been shot, but it felt like hours, years. So much had changed… "Quinn, can you walk?"

She grimaced, hands pressed against her side, but she nodded and Finn helped her to her feet.

"Hold onto my chair, Quinn." Artie said, looking up at her. He was still scared, but now he had a mission, and three girls to take care of. "People clear paths for wheelchairs."

Even in chaos this held true, and Finn spared a fraction of a second to watch them work their way into the throng of students, winging a prayer up to God, because they needed all the help they could get.

Then he turned to Puck and found his face set. "Let's go." He said, and they turned to run in the opposite direction of the crowd, towards the gunshots, the screams, the blood, the death.

.***.

Becky really, really liked talking to Coach Sylvester.

She understood Becky, and the teen sometimes thought that her cheerleading coach knew her better than her own parents. Where her parents always said, "you can't", Coach Sylvester never let her quit, even when things seemed like they'd be way too hard for a girl with Down Syndrome.

She'd never expected to make the Cheerios, and the practices had quickly become her favorite part of the day. Sure, most of the time they were being yelled at, and yeah, most of the other cheerleaders were pretty mean to her, but there was also something to be said about just _belonging_ to something. It was like Kurt, the only guy on their squad, always said: being a part of something special made you special.

And she didn't mean special in the way that meant you had Down Syndrome. She meant special in the way that fireworks and birthdays and getting an A on a test were special. Good kind of special.

So when Coach Sylvester had left practice in a huff, Becky followed her. She wanted to ask her for a favor. It was her Senior year this year (for the second time. She was doing high school in six years instead of four, which was okay by her) and a lot of kids were asking for teacher recommendations to go to college.

It wasn't expected of Becky to go to college. She was special (this time, not like fireworks or birthdays, more like Down Syndrome) and she wasn't supposed to do stuff like that. But being in the Cheerios convinced her that, maybe, if she tried really hard, she could do something like college.

"Coach Sylvester?" She said, timid. And her coach – and, quite frankly, her idol – turned towards her and did something she rarely did.

Sue Sylvester smiled. Not like normal people smile, Becky thought, more like that tired kind of smile you saw on TV shows like General Hospital, when the main doctor was kind of sad and kind of tired but was still trying to get stuff done.

And Coach Sylvester might have said something, maybe, if that wasn't the instant something loud, like her dad's car backfiring, went off in the distance.

Becky ducked her head. Loud noises, especially unexpected loud noises, made her anxious. She put her hands over her ears and did something her mom always told her to do when she was a little worried: she started humming.

There were more loud sounds, this time less like a car and more like a bang from a gun on a TV show, and Becky hummed louder. Coach Sylvester was looking down the hallway, eyebrows drawn together in a hard line as if she was trying to figure something out.

There were screams now, too, and Becky could see people running down the main hallway. One boy wasn't running, though, he was going too slow and turned down their corridor to cause chaos here.

Coach Sylvester was saying something to her, but Becky was humming too loudly to make out the words. Maybe everything would still be okay, maybe the boy was carrying a fake gun. Maybe this was like practice for Halloween, when everyone pretended to screaming and bleeding and everyone knew it was just pretend.

But Becky's hopes were dashed when a bullet came speeding towards her. Coach Sylvester pushed her onto the ground (hard enough to hurt, hard enough for her to yell out).

By the time Becky got her bearings, the boy with the gun was heading in the direction of the Glee room and Coach Sylvester was on the ground, with blood that didn't come from a Halloween costume running down her chest.

**We swear this is really not meant to be depressing. It's a story of healing -we just have to injure everyone first.**

**And don't worry, the rest of the story is focused mainly on Kurt. He's our favorite character, too.**

**Happy Halloween, everybody.**


	7. Teenage Wasteland

_"Don't cry. Don't raise your eye. It's only teenage wasteland." **The Who**_

.***.

**1:59 PM**

Kurt leaned against the closet he'd locked Eric in. The boy (who might have, eventually, become his boy_friend_) pounded his fists against the door.

"Shut up, Eric!" Kurt begged, looking towards the door. "Please…we can get through this."

"Then you hide, too!" Eric said, his voice muffled by the fake wood door. "And unlock the door. It's a dead giveaway."

Kurt hesitated, and Eric said (and this was a testament to the fact that they should be together…Eric already knew him…) "Take it out, Kurt. I won't do anything stupid."

Biting his lip, Kurt removed the drumstick .The shots were getting closer, the screams further away. He hoped that he was making the right choice – if they hid, whoever had the gun would just go past the room, thinking it empty. If they ran, they could be caught in a hail of bullets.

But before Kurt got more than halfway into his own hiding spot – a cabinet adjacent to Eric's – the door banged against the wall and Kurt found himself looking down the barrel of a gun for the first time.

He put his hands up, an automatic reaction born of too much NCIS. He lifted his eyes off the barrel of the gun and looked at the person behind the attack. If he was going to die, he was going to look his attacker in the eye.

"Hello, fag." The insult no longer phased Kurt, but he found himself shaking at the tone. Detached, inhuman. "Where's Eric?"

"What?" Kurt was surprised at the dialogue. He was expecting an insult, a shot, move on. "Eric who?"

The gun cocked, made that tell-tale click sound, the one that came right before the blood and the death. "Eric Hartman. Eric who used to be my best friend."

"I don't…" Kurt swallowed, tried to sound masculine and sure for once in his life. "I don't know who you're talking about. I was just going to practice…I'm in the glee club."

"I know who you are, Hummel." The boy spit out, eyes darting crazily around the room. The gun he was holding shook. "And I know that if I shoot you enough times, you'll probably tell me where he is."

The closet door burst open and Eric tumbled out. "Mitch?" he asked, staring at the person. "Mitch, what are you doing! Put that gun down!"

"What do you know?" The boy who was apparently Mitch shouted. "You disappeared Freshman year! You're embarrassed of us!"

"Us?" Eric asked, and Kurt admired him for the fact that he could look puzzled with a gun held to his head. "What, Brad too?"

"Of course Brad too! _He_ didn't desert me because I was bad for his image!" Mitch trained the gun on Eric, finger wobbling on the trigger.

"I joined the band! It's not my fault they don't shoot up every weekend, or get trashed on their parent's beer. Mitch, I just grew out of you guys." Eric winced when he realized that these were the wrong words to say to someone with a gun.

"Grew out of us!" Mitch yelled, then swung the gun back over to Kurt. "What about him? You grew out of my sister when you became a fag. You going to grow out of him?" Mitch's eyes glinted with riotous rage. "Maybe I should just help you along."

"Mitch, no!"

The next second, it was as if a white-hot poker had pierced through Kurt's upper arm, followed immediately by something akin to a polar bear crashing into his side, sending him tumbling to the ground. Two more shots, and the thing that had run into him went completely, deathly still.

Kurt breathed through his nose, trying to ignore the pain that was like fire in his arm. He pushed against the weight on top of him enough to look back out into the room.

Mitch had been joined by another boy with a gun, and they both had them trained on him, on the thing that was pressing into his hurt arm. Kurt closed his eyes, prayed that if he died he might be able to see his mother again, prayed that it wouldn't hurt too much, that his dad would go on without him…

But the shot never came, at least not towards him.

Kurt peeked through his lashes when he heard a grunt, the cold clash of metal on the hard tile floor. Mitch had been tackled by Finn, who had come out of nowhere. A shot went off once, twice, but that didn't stop Puck from taking the other gun-happy teen down.

Kurt didn't hear the words exchanged. He just knew that the other boy, who still had his gun, suddenly pointed it at Mitch and pulled the trigger, then maneuvered the gun through Puck's grasping hands and turned it slowly.

"No!" That was Finn's scream. Finn's yell, because he was afraid the gun was going the other way, towards Puck's face, ready to blow his best friend away.

But the gun trained on its owner, and the final blast, nine minutes after the first one, announced suicide. It also announced the end of a battle no one knew was going to be fought, the end of people with friends, parents, brothers, lovers. It announced the end to the lives of students, and teachers, of children and adults and innocents.

And innocence.

**Okay, recap: Mitch and Brad are dead, Eric and Puck and Kurt and a ton of other people are shot/dying.**

**And now we have to pick up the pieces.**

**Review?**


	8. Bad Moon Rising

_"Don't go 'round tonight, well it's bound to take your life. There's a bad moon on the rise. **Creedence Clearwater Rivival**_

**_.***._**

**2:10 PM**

Finn rolled off of the suddenly limp body of Leads, feeling sick as he caught sight of the head, blown wide open from point-blank range. He turned instead to Puck, because Puck usually knew what to do when situations arose.

But he found his best friend curled on his side, hands pressed to his stomach, face screwed up in pain. "Puck?" He said, hands ghosting worriedly over his body, unwilling to press down and cause more pain. "Puck…hey, man, c'mon. We're okay. You're okay. It's over now…" he didn't know what he was saying, only that the words were soothing to his own ears.

A cry from behind him, and Finn turned. He remembered now, why he and Puck had started sprinting down the hallway full speed, no plan, no weapons or means of defense. Just guts. Because they'd heard Kurt's unmistakable voice, high and frightened from the Glee room, and had seen both attackers staked out in the door.

No way were they going to lose another Glee member, not like this.

So they'd sprinted, leapt fast and low, tackling like they were on a football field and this was game. But not before the gun had gone off…

"Kurt?" Finn half-twisted, still fretting over Puck, who was moving feebly now, his face ashen. Still, Kurt might have been his step-brother, and somehow they'd become friends over the last year. "Kurt, are you alright?"

But instead of an answer he got a scream, high and arching, not a scream of physical pain but of emotional anguish. "Eric? Eric, you swore you weren't going to do anything stupid!" Kurt had rolled out from other that other boy, who Finn vaguely recognized from his Stats class. Quiet, likable, and blisteringly funny, it had caused something of a stir in the school when Eric Hartson had made a date with Kurt Hummel.

Now, that same boy was on the ground, bullet holes in his chest to match the ones in Puck's side, the one in Kurt's arm.

"Kurt!" Finn yelled, because that seemed to be the only way he could be heard over that keening cry coming from the other boy. "Kurt! Look at me!" He used the same voice he always used on the field, the one that commanded respect, the one that gave the impression he knew what the hell he was doing when in reality he didn't know jack shit.

And Kurt looked at him. Ripped his eyes away from the boy who had literally taken a bullet for him and locked eyes with Finn from across the room.

"Kurt, you need to get help. There'll be ambulances and police outside because of this, you know it." Finn eyed Kurt's arm and knew there was no way he'd be allowed back into the school with an injury like that. But it was for the best. "You need to go to them right now, Kurt. You hear me? Go on, man. I'll take care of him."

Kurt got up, moving gingerly at first because of the pain in his arm, then steeling himself. He blew past Finn, still crouching in the doorway, and took off down the hall, stumbling against lockers and walls but keeping up a pace any track coach would be damn proud of.

Finn took one last look at Puck – he was bleeding, that was for sure, but Finn had stayed awake for Biology just enough to know that the bullet had probably missed the important stuff, like the lungs. So he touched Puck, who was too out of it to really know what was going on, one more time before sliding across the floor towards Eric.

He didn't know Eric all that well, but he had nothing against the younger boy, and if what he thought had happened seconds before they had crashed into two guys with guns had actually happened, then he was a hero.

But Eric was bad off, worse than Puck (Finn found himself noting this with a critical eye. He, who had never seen a bullet wound before today, performing triage, trying to figure out who needed help first) One bullet had hit his shoulder, the opposite shoulder from Kurt's wound, but the other had pierced a lung. Blood, terrifyingly red, stained his teeth and lips and, unlike Puck, Eric was totally conscious and scared.

"Hey," Finn said, kneeling, again pressing his hands against the wound that was almost obscenely hot with blood. "I'm Finn. You're going to be okay, man."

Eric's mouth opened and Finn was sure he was about to do something stupid. "Don't talk. It's okay, there's ambulances and stuff right outside. The police should be here any second."

Ignoring Finn's command, Eric managed to breathe one word through a mouth overflowing with vital blood. "Kurt?"

That word sealed Finn's opinion of the other boy, because he totally understood wanting to make sure someone you loved was okay. Hadn't he convinced Puck to come down here in the first place because he was sure it would be Rachel practicing in the Glee room? "He's fine. Banged up, but it could have been so much worse."

Finn was surprised to find tears streaming down his cheeks. Excess adrenaline and the emotional turmoil of the last twenty minutes combined with seeing his best friend, his ex-girlfriend, Kurt, Artie, Eric…everyone, shot and hurt and dying.

He couldn't stop the tears now. They were coming thick and fast, obscuring his vision, blocking his world. His throat closed up and he suddenly felt the overwhelming urge to get back to Puck, to make sure he was still okay.

Because he had an awful, terrifying feeling that this was only the beginning.

**Okay, I know everyone is all "don't kill Kurt." Do we look like Kurt killers? No. We love the guy. In fact, he, Eric, Puck, and Finn are our main characters.**

**As always, please review.**


	9. Lacrimosa

_"Day of wrath, day of anger will dissolve the world in ashes." **Mozart's Requiem Lacrimosa**_

_**.***.**_

**3:35 PM at the Hospital**

Sam leaned against the wall in the emergency room, his arm held gingerly away from him. He hadn't been shot in the chaos at the school – thank God – but he had been trampled in everyone's attempt to get out. Knocked to the ground near the back bathrooms, three different people had stepped on his wrist, breaking it in four different places.

Of course, it could have been so much worse.

The ER was packed. Students were lying on beds, sitting on chairs, many with dried blood or casts or bandages covering their bodies, many who hadn't been seen by doctors yet, because there just weren't enough to go around. They were all loud, scared, asking one another to verify facts.

Sam tried not to listen to the gossip swirling around him. He'd already heard that Mr. Schuester was dead, but that couldn't be right. And Finn and Mike and Kurt and Puck and…and the Glee club? They couldn't all have been hurt. Right?

He hadn't cried yet, not during those horrible minutes in the school when shots would ring out, hitting this kid, that kid, blood spattering on the walls. He hadn't cried out on the lawn, looking down at his swollen right hand and knowing, numbly, that it would probably never work right again.

But he was crying now, tears of fear and exhaustion that just ran down his face, unstoppable.

It was so crowded that Sam was sure that no one would notice the QB sobbing like a baby, but a second later he heard his name over the calls of the room. "Sam? Sam!"

His head shot up but he couldn't see anything through the tears that clung to his lashes. He was suddenly wrapped into a hug and he breathed in the smells of leather and grease that always, always reminded him of his brother.

Dean didn't let him go until Sam started making small noises of pain. When they finally broke apart, Sam's brother kept one hand on his arm, as if to make sure he didn't go anywhere. "I was at work and the television started blaring…you have no idea how scared I was…"

"I'm sorry." Sam said, just to have something to say. Now that his brother was there, Sam felt the tears rushing back again. Dean usually made everything all right – when their parents died, he managed to get custody of Sam, even though Dean was only twenty-four and was supposed to be in med school, not taking care of a sixteen-year-old kid who'd been in boarding school all his life. He seemed to know instinctively how to keep a roof over their heads, even without the trust fund that had been stolen from their inheritance, the money that had been dispersed among relatives without finding its way to the grieving sons.

To stop himself from crying in front of the person he'd always idolized, Sam said, "How did you get in here?" They weren't letting family in, because the ER was so crowded with just kids that anxious parents would do more harm than good.

Dean still wouldn't rip his eyes from Sam, though he did let the ghost of a smile flit across his face for an instant. "Told them I was a med student called in to help with the carnage. If that didn't work I would have hit somebody…what happened to you hand?"

Sam had forgotten about his swollen, hurt hand. He should find someone to look at it, but just couldn't muster the strength. "It was broken…on the way out." Now he couldn't stop the lump from forming in his throat, and his next words were cracked, strained. "Why did they do this? I don't..."

But he couldn't finish, because Dean had put his arms around him and he'd broken down again, hiccupping sobs, tears making his brother's shirt wet. And Dean, who, a half-hour ago, had been terrified that his brother had died, could do nothing more than whisper meaningless words and hold on tight.

.***.

Finn held Quinn tight as she got her side stitched up. She buried her face in his blood-stained sweater for a second before steeling herself, pulling away. "Santana…"

"She's with Sam. Her parents are stuck in traffic." Finn's stomach flipped at the thought of Santana, usually so confident and sure, looking lost and vulnerable and…heartbroken. Brittney had been her best friend, like Puck was to Finn. And now with Brittney gone, Santana seemed to have become unanchored, set adrift.

Quinn winced as the stitches pulled tight. "I can't believe Brit…and Mike…"

"Mike's not dead yet." Finn said harshly, though he knew in his heart that the Asian would not survive the night. He's been shot in the chest close-range. Artie's quick thinking had gotten Mike to the ambulance within minutes, Brittney and Santana piled on top of him like puppies or pizzas, not at all like people. Mike was going, though, and Finn couldn't even work up the energy to say goodbye. It had been a long day.

Eric and Puck were both in surgery. Neither had died under Finn's care, though his hands had been stained red with blood. Finn didn't think he could take something like that, watching the light go out of the eyes of someone he'd known, someone he'd grown up with. Puck…

Already Finn knew that the hours and days and weeks coming up were going to be the worst in his life. It was an accepted fact that Mr. Schue was dead (Schue! Finn'd cried when he heard that), that Brittney was dead and Mike was going. Puck was hovering on the brink, and Finn still hadn't seen Rachel anywhere.

Quinn's stitches were done but she still rested against his arm, his chest, breathing hard. They'd been here three months ago, after the birth of the baby. That was the last time Finn held Quinn, just like this, with her leaning into his chest. She was crying then, hormones and stress contributing to the sudden loss of a being that used to live inside her and now was no longer even hers. She was crying now, mostly for Brittney but also for Santana, for herself. The Cheerios would have to put themselves back together.

They weren't in a privet room. Finn was pretty sure they didn't exist anymore, at least not for today, but they were behind a curtain, giving them a brief respite from the horrors that lay just outside of their small oasis. Finn looked up when this curtain was pulled aside, smiled tightly as Kurt came in.

Kurt had been shot, his shoulder shattered by the bullet, his collar bone broken by his fall to the hard tile floor of the Glee room, but he was up and walking, his face pained. "I don't get surgery until tomorrow."

"Understandable."

"Yeah. I was hoping to go home tonight, though." Kurt glanced at Quinn, who had fallen into a half-sleep in Finn's arms. "Dad's going to freak."

"Did you call him?" Finn had left his phone in his bag, which was back in the school, which meant he wasn't going to see it for a while, if ever.

Kurt nodded. "He was crazy. A customer had seen it on the news and told him the school got shot up. He's with your mom." Finn looked hard at Kurt and knew that they needed to sit down and talk, because Kurt needed someone to talk to, because they were brothers, or something like that.

Kurt leaned against the bed, rubbing his shoulder absently and wincing every time he put too much pressure on the bandages. "Thank you, Finn."

This surprised Finn. Thank him for what? For taking down Leads and Levin? Days later, the media would label Finn and Puck as heroes, would slap their faces on the covers of magazines. Finn hadn't done it to be a hero, though. He'd done it because he'd thought of Rachel, of Kurt's high scream, of Eric's frightened yell.

"I'm sorry it didn't happen sooner." Finn said, and he was sorry. Sorry that Kurt would be in pain for months, that his shoulder would always ache in damp weather, that his hand would never really work. He was sorry for not being there in time to save Eric from jumping in front of bullets to save a boy he'd gone out with once. He was just so damn sorry…

Kurt shrugged helplessly. Everything about this situation made him feel helpless. "You can't save everyone."

Well ain't that the truth.

**Wrote the whole chapter before I realized why I named Sam's brother 'Dean.' Oops.**

**Anyways, please, please review.**


	10. Que Sera Sera

_Que Sera, Sera, whatever will be, will be. The future's not ours to see. Que Sera, Sera._

_**.***.**_

**7:55 PM**

Eric woke up to pain, but at least he woke up.

He was in a room, and next to him was another boy, this one asleep, but with an identical heart monitor, an identical IV drip. Eric vaguely recognized Puck from his gym class, from the football games the band was required to attend, from that pain-crazed minute after Eric jumped in front of the bullets and before that other football player pressed down so hard on his wounds he passed into the world of sweet oblivion. This guy – whose cronies had, no doubt, been among those who threw him in the dumpster on Friday when his date with Kurt had become "news" – was someone Eric now owed his life to.

Something must have changed in his monitor, the way it was beeping, because a nurse was in within seconds, drawing the curtain around them and saying the doctor was coming in to explain his injuries. She also told him that his mother was here. "Do you want to see her?"

"Sure."

She walked in, large and imposing, her Bible in hand. His mother's religious fervor had reached towards fanaticism when his dad split three years ago, leaving her with two teenage sons. Now she quoted passages from it almost constantly.

The look she gave Eric was not one of a mother to her injured son (one who, if stories were to be believed, saved the life of someone else's son), but the glare of accusation a person would shoot at a known terrorist. "You did this."

"What?" he was still high on happy juice. Must have been, for giving the okay to his mother to come in.

"This is punishment from the Lord. Leviticus 20:13 says -"

"I know what it says, mom." Eric said, suddenly tired, so tired, and his wounds throbbed and sent stabs of pain up his body. He wanted to sleep for eternity, wanted to know exactly which organs he was now missing, wanted to know who else had been hurt, died…Kurt… He wanted his mom out of here.

But she talked over him, loudly, not listening, "'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death, their blood on their own heads.'"

This was the same verse she'd whipped out a week ago, but it stung now, in this context. "Mom, I'm still your son. I love Kurt -"

The slap, hard across his face, brought tears to his eyes. He was emotionally and physically drained after the wreak of the day, and now his mother was hitting him, accusing him of starting the shooting for being no more or less than who he _was_.

"Hey!"

Eric barely looked up at the voice, used his right hand, the one not attached to the IV, to wipe his eyes before the Quarter Back entered the room. He barely heard Finn's voice, not threatening but low and serious, suggesting that his mother to leave the room. The only thing that mattered was the other voice, high and scared, suddenly by his side.

"Eric! You're alright!" Kurt seemed to be trying to restrain himself from hugging – he didn't look well himself, with bandages on his shoulder and a slightly greenish tint to his face. He did use his good arm to smooth Eric's hair, which made him wince, knowing what was coming.

"Vile boy!" His mother spat, pointing at Kurt, "You and _him_—" _him_ being Eric, no longer deserving of a name, "Caused this mess! Children dead because of you! Christian lives lost!"

Finn steered the woman from the room, closed the door behind her, and then turned to stare at Eric, who found that the tears were back. Still, he managed a wobbly sort of smile. "I see you've met my mother."

"I'm so sorry, Eric." Kurt said quietly, collapsing into a chair. "I'm sorry that your mother is…like that…I'm sorry you got hurt because of me."

"I wanted to take the bullets, Kurt, they would have killed you."

"Could have killed you, too." Kurt said logically. "Why?"

Finn groaned, rolling his eyes at his sometimes-brother, "Do you need to ask, man?"

Eric grinned through the tears and found that the smile was real. "I'm so glad you're okay, Kurt." Which, if you read between the lines (and Kurt always did) was like the biggest _I love you_ imaginable.

.***.

A lot of kids took off before they were really checked out, whisked away by parents or running from their own grief. Everyone seemed to have lost someone they loved.

But the Glee club stuck around, even Finn and Rachel, who hadn't been hurt in the shooting, not physically. They stayed because they needed to make sure, make quite sure, that the ten of them that remained lived through the night.

Rachel sat with Santana and Sam. She'd never had a best friend, so she didn't know what to say to someone who'd just lost theirs.

Santana looked horror-struck, as if her entire world had collapsed around her. Her parents had come to pick her up an hour ago, after the wound in her side – a graze, really, but one that bled – had been stitched up. As one of the less important cases, Santana didn't merit a bed or a trip to the neighboring trauma center.

Sam, the newest to their group, was lost. He'd just met these people a scant few months ago, had just deemed Mike as pretty cool and having some awesome dance skills, had just started looking at Brittney as a kind of cute sister, one he wouldn't mind making out with, before they were gone. He wanted to find Quinn but she was holed up in the depths of the hospital somewhere, and he refused to take up his brother's offer to head home before he found her.

Now, though, now that he was sitting down with her, Sam felt he had to say _something_ to ease this girl's pain. He cleared his throat, a strangely loud sound. "My parents died last May, Santana." He hadn't told anyone at this school that, didn't want to be That Guy Who's Parents Died, like he had been for the last month at the Prep. "And you know what helped?"

"What?' Rachel asked, interested even if Santana wasn't.

"Chocolate."

They met up with Kurt and Finn as they raided the vending machine for Hershey bars. Kurt looked as if he'd been hit by a bus, his usual immaculate clothing rumpled, bunched up to stay away from the fresh bandages and broken arm.

Finn looked worse, if possible. He had just sent Quinn home with her mother, the girl frantic to get to Santana but even more willing to just sit in her room and cry. He had just made sure that Eric's mother left him alone, had started the long process of looking for his own mother in the crowd of parents waiting outside. He was tired, had started the day early and was now playing knight in shining armor.

The Glee kids looked at each other, lost in a hospital. Kurt had yet to be admitted, Santana and Sam both needed to be released, and Finn and Rachel were in that in between place – not hurt, not physically, but it was never the physical hurts that mattered most.

Finn cleared his throat. "Anyone see Tina?"

"She didn't come to school today." Kurt murmured, "Sick. And Mercedes was in the cafeteria. None of those guys got hurt. She texted me a few hours ago – she's home. She says the news is devastating."

It was a strange thing. Over the next week, Finn and Puck would be glorified as ultimate heroes. Artie and Mr. Schuester and Eric and countless others were heroes. On the covers of magazines and newspapers they looked strong and smart and brave. But right now they were scared, so scared, because everything they knew was crumbling around them.

And there was nothing they could do about that.

**So...yeah. Healing, kind of, and violence, and meanness, and guilt...**

**Anyway, after all that, we hope ya'll have a Happy Thanksgiving, like the wedding episode of Glee, and have time to see the new Harry Potter movie (and, of course, to review)**


	11. Breathe 2am

_"No one can find the rewind button now, so cradle your head in your hands and breathe, just breathe." **Anna Nalick**_

_**.***.**_

**October 5th 2010. The next day**

Puck had lost his spleen to a bullet, and another one had broken off a piece of his pelvis, near the top of his left leg. He would need physical therapy. He may never be able to run right. And, oh yeah, there may be pain for days/weeks/months after all this was done.

He woke to reporters, to his mother and little sister. They were shaken, crying, happy to see him awake (but not half as happy as Puck was to see them, no siree bob. He started crying at the sight of Alice, real and vital and alive and not lying in a pool of blood like all girls in the hallways of McKinley). He woke to news, broken gently by his mother, of Mike and Brittney and Mr. Schuester, and Puck wanted to punch something.

Everyone left before all his questions were answered, a doctor shooing them out because Puck needed to rest. He just sat there, dazed. They'd called him a hero, but they'd let slip a statistic. Nineteen students had died, another forty had been shot, and fifteen more had been injured in the ensuing chaos.

A small voice from next to him, and Puck started. He'd forgotten about that other boy, since he'd had no visitors all morning and had been quiet with pain the same way Puck was. "Finn is okay. He wanted to see you when you woke up but his mom hauled him home for a good meal. He looked like death. Everyone else is basically whole, too." The boy gave a strangled laugh. "Whole. That's about the only word that's truthful anymore. _Fine_ is just not enough, you know? I don't know if we'll ever be fine again."

Puck placed the face – that boy who had started going out with Kurt only last week, the one who the jocks had hazed, stupid homophobes. Puck wasn't into that shit anymore. He just didn't have the time.

"Thank you, by the way." The boy smiled, his thin face reminding Puck vaguely of Kurt – the same high cheekbones and long lashes, the feminine features. "Puck, right? Or Noah…Kurt calls you Noah." The kid shrugged, wincing as he moved. "You saved my life."

"I guess." Puck said, startled by this fact. He cleared his throat, figured he might as well connect with this guy. All the normal questions were out the window, though. This was not a normal situation. "Who?" Was the only word that sprang to mind.

"Who died?" The boy sighed heavily, "I don't even know them all. George. Do you know George Perry? He played tenor with me in the band. Was trying to get his girlfriend out and was shot in the chest. A ton of people were hurt, though. Kurt…" here his voice came out as a sob of relief, "Shot in the arm…umm…those girls? The cheerleaders you hang with? Both shot, but they're going to be fine. Physically." The boy shook his head. "I just don't know. I don't know about any of this anymore. Mitch and Brad are dead, of course, but I don't think they're in that number on the news. I don't think anyone's sad they died."

It struck Puck for a half second that this kid had called the shooters by name, as if he knew them. If he were Finn or Kurt or even Mike (aw, hell, now he was going to cry like a pansy because of Mike…) he would have asked about the connection, but Puck was just too damn tired.

"Hey," Puck said, turning over slightly and wincing as he pulled on the IV. "What's your name, man?"

The boy's face darkened for a split second, a sunny day that hit a sudden storm cloud. "You threw me in the dumpster for being gay and you don't even know my name?"

"Dude, I didn't throw you in a dumpster. I don't do that shit anymore – it's those fags Azimo and Karofsky that hate you homos." He realized the absurdity of that sentence and didn't care to edit it, though he saw the boy grinning a little. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah," the boy said, staring hard at Puck. "Yeah, I know what you mean." He paused for a beat, and Puck was drifting closer and closer to the black world where pain was finally silenced, the one that the happy juice kept bringing him to. "My name's Eric...Noah."

Eric looked over his shoulder, saw that Puck had fallen asleep with his face turned towards him. He'd meant his thanks sincerely, was going to repeat them to Finn the next time he had a chance. And he liked Puck's cocky, rebellious nature. It was refreshing.

"Noah, I think this is the start of a beautiful friendship."

.***.

Burt rubbed the sleep from his eyes, watching as Kurt slowly woke up.

It had been the week from hell. Not only was his head mechanic out of town (mother dead, family in ruins, how could Burt not give him paid leave?) but a shipment of parts was now six days late and he had a woman on his back, needing the car to buy groceries and clothing and other essentials for her four children.

Kurt didn't think that his father knew about what had happened at the movies, but he'd heard the soft conversation from the basement and had stopped to take a listen.

It wasn't eves dropping. Or, even if it was, it wasn't because Burt didn't trust his son. Kurt was mostly mature, honest, respectful. Burt just didn't trust the rest of the world.

The basement had been rebuilt for Finn, and Burt was happy to see a kind of camaraderie between the two teens. Something like friendship, or brotherhood.

"How'd the date go?" Finn's tone was genuinely interested, and Burt paused. He wanted to know, too, but Kurt seemed stuck on the word _fine_ these days.

And the pattern held true now. "Fine."

Burt heard the scrape of a chair, footsteps, then the deep murmur from Finn, "Kurt, are you crying?" Concern now, and Burt almost threw open the door, almost went to comfort his son. But something held him back – some things, he knew, needed to stay between brothers.

As if he'd needed an outlet all along, the story of the woman at the movie theater came tumbling out. With each word, it was like Burt's worst fears for his son were being realized. So there was still bigotry in this god-awful world…

He'd crept away, meaning to talk to Kurt about it when he got back from the shop on Monday and it was just the two of them, Carol at work and Finn at football. And now…

Burt had never even thought to fear _this_, fear a stranger shooting his son in his own school. It had happened before, sure, once in a blue moon, but this was _Lima_. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happened here.

A customer had come into the store and told Burt to put on the radio. After a few seconds, the man had said, "Isn't that sick? Kids shooting kids? Wonder where they learned _that_?"

Burt didn't hear. He was already out the door, pulling his coat on, his car keys out. He needed to find Carol…no, he needed to go to the hospital….the school. Where would Kurt be? Where was his son?

The hospital didn't allow the parents in for two hours, trying to sort out the bullet holes and broken bones and dead children. Rumors ripples through the crowd, unconfirmed stories that this kid or that teacher died.

By that time, Burt had found Carol, and thanked God that she had some sort of news. "They're both alive." She said, burying her face in Burt's grease-stained coveralls. "Finn called me…"

"Are they injured?" Burt asked, staring at the hospital as if the building itself had the answers. He was beginning to think that nothing had the answers he was looking for.

Carol held him tighter, willing him to be okay with whatever the answer was. "Kurt was shot. In the shoulder…"

Someone told them later that Finn and Puck (Puck the Punk, Burt called him in his head, that kid who just wouldn't quit messing with Kurt) had been the ones to take down those two kids. Oh, and the shooters died, parents said, but good riddance, right? Death was too good for them. Ten…no, fifteen…no, twenty people, dead because of them, because they were playing with guns.

More ripples through the crowd, rumors spreading like wildfire. Remember that cheerleading coach, the one as hard as nails?...yeah, the one on that awful morning show…she took a bullet for that girl with Down Syndrome…shielded her with her body…oh, the coach is alive, I think…ICU…

Remember that teacher, the one with the Glee club…funny hair, you're right…well, he saved his Spanish class…went down in a hail of bullets…twenty kids…hero…

…I'll tell you who's a hero…you hear about that kid at the movies last weekend…plays the drums in the marching band?...my daughter called me, told me the shooters ended up in the band room…jumped in front of bullets to saved his boyfriend…yeah, he's gay…still a hero…

A hero.

Burt looked down at his son, just starting to shake off the anesthetic. "So you have your own personal hero, son?" That was the story Finn had told, anyway, and Burt felt a smile tug at his lips for the first time since the heart-stopping news.

Because having one more person look after his son couldn't hurt.

**Blaine is messing up our story line, but we forgive him because he was Harry first and who can't forgive the Boy Who Lived?**

**Anyways, please review.**


	12. Romeo and Juliet

_"Juliet when we made love you used to cry. You said 'I love you like the stars above - I'm gonna love you 'til I die!' There's a place for us. I know you know this song. One day you're gonna realize it's just that the time was wrong." **Indigo Girls**_

_**.***.**_

**October 6th 2010**

Finn was in Puck's room. He'd staked out a spot there, shared it, occasionally, with Alice, Puck's little sister who was twelve and scared. Mostly, though, he had the room to himself. Eric never had visitors, except for Kurt, discharged that morning but hustled home for some real rest, and a kid from a band, a tall, handsome guy who told Eric that somebody died and left hurriedly.

After that, Eric got real quiet, and Finn looked over at him, concerned. "That kid who died, you know him well?"

Eric cut his eyes over to Finn, sizing him up, wondering, Finn was sure, whether or not Finn was asking for the gossip or because he actually cared. "George," he said at last, a strangled croak. "Yeah. He was my best friend."

Which made Finn look, almost subconsciously, at Puck, flipping through the channels on the old television. What if he had died, so soon after their friendship was repaired? The thought made a lump rise to Finn's throat. He looked at the television, mostly just to have something to look at. "Hey, stop there."

"News? Come on, Finn." Both Puck and Eric were whining, sick of seeing their own school, empty but for blood stains and police officers, plastered on national news stations, the sob story of the week.

"Look – it's about those guys. The shooters." Finn shuddered, remembering the feeling of the boy he was struggling against suddenly becoming lifeless, limp, dying in Finn's arm.

The newscaster (a perky, pretty woman. Why did the pretty ones always give the worst news?) was saying: "Police have confiscated the shooters' computers and found a long series of e-mails exchanged between the two."

It cut to a video of a plain-clothes cop, or maybe a shrink, "It's obvious that these are the ramblings of two seriously disturbed boys. There's references to drugs and alcohol. Unlike other school shooters, though, these two didn't have a whole list of people they wanted to kill."

"Not a whole list," the female reporter segued smoothly. "Just one. A mutual friend of the two that they had a falling out with a few years prior to the awful shooting and referred to in the e-mails only as "he". The spark that put the plan in motion, according to the e-mails, was their old friend going to the movies with another boy. More on this story at eleven."

Finn looked incredulously at the screen as Puck whirled on Eric, shrinking back against his sheets. "You knew them?" Puck nearly screamed, enraged. "And you didn't do anything to stop this?"

"Puck," Finn muttered, putting a hand on Puck's arm. He saw Eric's reaction to the accusation, the hurt written plainly across his face.

"I haven't hung out with them since middle school. They were into drugs – heavy stuff, dangerous stuff. I joined the band and fell out of touch. They were always mad at me for doing so well without them, I think…but I never thought…I mean, who would ever assume…" Eric's face split then, realizing the full impact of the report. "They did this because of me -"

"No," Finn began, though he didn't know how he could stop this conclusion in light of the reporter's words.

"They killed George because they knew he was my best friend…came right for the band room to kill me…Kurt was just a bonus…" Eric was dazed, the whole thing making sense now, in a terrible, awful way. "My mother was right, this whole thing happened because I'm gay."

"Hey, man -" Puck said, calmer, concerned now. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean -"

"No, you're right. My mother's right. I can't believe…all those kids are dead…George is dead…and Kurt's hurt – you, too, Puck. It's all my fault…"

Finn rushed forward, not knowing what he was going to do but he knew he had to stop this train of thought before it led to a darker place. "Hey!" Finn said, making sure his voice was firm but doing his damndest not to sound angry. "You can't say this happened because you're gay. Kurt's my brother, you think he caused this, too? This is not people punishing you for being who you are, it's two people who were seriously messed up and got their hands on a load of guns."

Eric stared at him, but in the glint of his eyes Finn could see something there. Hope, perhaps, that someone in the world didn't think he was a monster. Then the other boy shook his head, "Thank you, Finn, for saying that, but that doesn't change my mom…or her church…she won't take me back…my best friend is dead…I have no place to go."

Finn smiled, because this, at least, was something he could remedy. "I think we can fix that."

.***.

Sam sat with Quinn in his living room, and he didn't understand a word she was saying. "What do you mean?"

"I can't stay here, Sam. I can't go back to that school and walk down those hallways and see empty desks. Do you know that there are two more kids in wheelchairs for life because of what happened? And Brittney…"

After his parents' deaths and moving across three states to be with his brother, Sam couldn't imagine losing somebody else. Quinn was his lifeline, his center. "You can't just run away, Quinn. This happened, there's no denying that, and it was terrible and awful and I know that Brittney was your best friend and I'm so sorry that she died and sorrier that her death hurt you so much, and I'm upset that you were shot, and I know it must be a hundred times worse for you…" he was rambling, something he did so often he was barely even aware of it. Dean often told him to _cut to the chase, kid_, but he never followed that advice.

"But it's like in _A New Hope_ when Obi-Wan dies and Luke's all shaken up about it but has to find his way in the Force anyway…" Using science fiction as an example was even worse than rambling, but, like the rambling, Sam just couldn't help himself.

"I'm not a Jedi, Sam," Quinn sighed. She liked Sam, who was so different from every other guy she dated. Not only was he gorgeous and a great singer, but he was intelligent, likable, a combination of Finn's All-American morals and Puck's screw-you attitude. And he'd introduced her to the travesty that is Star Trek ("it's like a car crash," Quinn had said of the Original Series, "It's so bad but I just can't look away.")

But she couldn't do it. She wasn't brave, or strong. She was running away from Santana, who was an emotional wreck without the calming voice of Brittney at her side. Quinn had always known that there had been something between her two best friends – they were like Han, Leia, and Luke (blame Sam for the sci-fi references) – three best friends, sure, but with a romance between two of them. And, like Luke, Quinn didn't mind.

Now she didn't know what to say, what to do. How did she comfort Santana? Was that even possible? (And, oh God, there was Tina too. Tina, who had gotten with Mike over the summer – which Quinn totally understood once she saw his pecs – and would be comatose by now) She was supposed to be so mature and "together" after the baby, and she just couldn't handle this.

"I can't do this, Sam." She said, her voice cracking on his name. "I can't be here for my friends, I can't even think about going back to school…I feel like I'm going to be sick every time I try."

Sam leaned forward, earnest now, "So you want to move somewhere where no one else knows what you're going through? You stay at McKinley and you have a thousand people who know exactly why you get nightmares every night."

"If I stay here I have to think about it. If I move I can move on." Quinn hoped he understood. She's spent three long days knowing for a fact that she'd reached her breaking point. Her mother had been talking about moving back East anyway, staying with the grandparents as a "trial separation" from Quinn's father. After the shooting, her mother had been more adamant than ever, and Quinn no longer had the will to fight her.

She got up to go, trying not to look at Sam's face, so openly hurt, as pale as the cast that wrapped around his hand. "I think this could have been something really amazing." Quinn murmured, and truer words had never been spoken. This could have been peaceful, beautiful, like dating her perfect polar opposite.

But she couldn't fight it out here, she just couldn't. She was supposed to be the strong one but she wasn't, not really. Going East would make everything easier (and, oh God, the thought of that school, when all she would ever hear is the shot of the gun, the white-hot iron pressing to her side) and she deserved something to be easy for once.

"Quinn…"Sam said, and Quinn couldn't look at the tears in his eyes. She knew that his parents had just died in the Spring, she knew that he was reeling from this shooting just as much as anyone, with his friends either dead or in the hospital. She knew that he had made her the center of his life, and she wished that she was strong enough for Sam to be enough.

"Goodbye, Sam." She said, staring straight at that arm, the one covered by the ugly cast and filled with pins and scars. Broken, like her, like the school.

Ohio would never be safe again. Quinn didn't know if any school would ever feel safe again. She didn't know if she would ever be whole again. But she deserved to try, didn't she?

Still, as she fled, she couldn't help but think that this, not staying in school on Monday, was the biggest mistake of her life.

**I think this is our favorite chapter yet. Poor Sam. Poor, poor Eric. We just like leaving our characters emotionally ruined.**

**Anyone else incredibly happy there's a Glee Christmas episode? Or how about the fact that Christmas is only three weeks away?**


	13. Blame It On Me

_"Milli Vanili told you to Blame it on the Rain but if you blame it on the rain tell me what can be gained? So, if all else fails you can blame it on me. **Barenaked Ladies**_

_**.***.**_

**October 8th 2010**

Eric smiled broadly as Kurt entered the room. It was the only time he truly smiled during the course of the day. Finn had taken up permanent residence on the other side of the room and he and Puck often talked sports (they were _Cowboys_ fans of all things, and Eric refused to participate in the many conversations on principle). The band kids circulated in and out, looking at him with sympathy that the Glee kids (also circulating in and out) couldn't match. The bandies knew how close he'd been with George.

But Glee people kept visiting, too, swearing up and down that Eric had nothing to do with Mitch and Brad going crazy. Mercedes, a heavy black girl who threw herself at him, crying, right after he woke from surgery. "You jumped in front of bullets for my boy? You are my new favorite person in the world."

"Umm…thanks."

From then on, Mercedes would come in, give him updates on Kurt (which Eric found himself looking forward to. He didn't know if he was in love with Kurt – he hadn't known, until three or four years ago, that he'd liked boys that way at all – but this was pretty close to love), bring him magazines, books. She loaned him her iPod and asked if he wanted anything else.

What he wanted was for his mother to visit him. His brother had come, once, and Finn had hauled him out the same way he'd hauled out Eric's mother when his younger brother started screaming at him, blaming him, as the media was trying to blame him, for the shooting.

Now, though, Eric was looking forward to Kurt's visit. Kurt, who had suddenly become the main character in most of his thoughts, who he'd jumped in front of bullets for (and he didn't regret that, not for a second) who came in and looked at him the same way the other Glee kids and some of the nicer band geeks looked at him – as if he wasn't a freak, or a murderer, or That Gay Kid but Eric. Just Eric.

"Hey Eric." And for Eric, who already knew Kurt so well after only really knowing him for a month, knew that the softness in his words meant that Kurt was shy. Shy! The first "out" gay kid in Lima in a decade and he was shy around Eric.

"Hey, Kurt." They just stared at each other, drinking it in. This was their first real visit since the shooting and they both wanted it to be perfect. Finn and Puck were rooting for them, too – Finn had left t he room for the first time in a day, begging off to go out to lunch with his mother. Puck was pretending to be asleep. It gave them some semblance of privacy.

"I'm sorry," Kurt blurted out, the words tripping over themselves in an effort to be purged from him. "I'm sorry that you got hurt. I swear to God, Eric, I did all that just so you wouldn't get hurt."

"You're sorry?" Eric said incredulously, glad that this was out in the open _now_. He was never one for letting wounds fester. "I'm the one Mitch and Brad were after. Haven't you been watching the news?"

Kurt waved this information away. "But if I wasn't there you probably would have gotten out of the school before any of it happened. It was just me and my stupid…"

"It wasn't stupid!" Eric said hotly, "You were coming to try to talk to me because I ran out like a coward after what happened at the movies on Friday." Eric smiled a little, to show he wasn't mad (at least not at Kurt) "That all seems so stupid now."

"Yeah, remember when we had problems like being gay?"

"And getting thrown into dumpsters." Eric added, disgust passing over his face. "That was my first time last week."

Kurt laughed a little. "I guess Puck took your cherry then."

"Naw man, I don't do stupid shit like that anymore." Puck said sleepily from the other side of the room. "I'll beat up Azimo and Karofsky if you want, though."

"Sure, just as soon as we get those bullets out of your stomach you'll be right as rain." Kurt called, his eyes softening at the confirmation that Puck had changed. He turned to Eric, "I heard that Azimo and Karofsky got out without a scratch."

"C'est la vie." Eric sighed. "Doesn't it always work like that?"

"Yeah." A beat passed, two, then Kurt smile broadly, laughing a little.

"What?" Eric asked, wanting to be in on the secret.

"This is some second date, isn't it?" Kurt said, slipping his hand into Eric's. "I mean, come on, you're already on your back…"

Eric laughed, then winced. "Don't do that to me, man, it hurts to laugh."

Kurt's smile deepened, became real for the first time since those shots went off, and something deep in him realized that maybe not everything was over after all. This feeling penetrated him, filled him, and he stopped being over-analyzing, perfect Kurt and started to be a boy madly in love with someone who returned his feelings. This Kurt was able to lean over, full of love, and life, and happiness, and kiss Eric's surprised lips.

And Eric kissed him back, in a hospital room with a heart monitor to one side and a protesting Puck ("get a room, homos") to the other.

Maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

.***.

Nothing would ever be okay again.

Finn trudged across the field, feeling the difference in the air. There were deep ruts on the grass from where ambulances had parked to cart kids away by the dozens. Bleeding kids, scared kids…dead kids.

McKinley was opening in two weeks. Until then, kids could take classes at Calvin Coolidge High across town. A lot weren't, though, like Kurt, who spent most of the time either at the hospital or in his own bed, a pocket full of pills following him around, or Puck, who wouldn't get his second round of surgery until tomorrow and wasn't expected to be out of the hospital for another five days.

A lone figure sat on the bleachers and Finn made his way towards it, going across the point on the track where the cheerleaders normally danced during the games, moving up past the spot in the bleachers where the band played to get to Sam, sitting small and alone near the top.

"Quinn left." Sam said, and Finn was startled by his voice. Distant. Hollow.

"I know," Finn sighed, leaning back against the bleacher behind him. Quinn had visited Puck the day before to say goodbye to both of them and had tried to explain her reasons for leaving. Finn understood them all. She'd wanted to get out of Lima long before the shooting.

"What's the point?" Sam murmured, looking out across the field. Finn looked with him and could almost see them as they had been a week ago, donned out in pads, show-boating for sweethearts on the sidelines. A week ago they'd been kids playing a game. Now suddenly they were faced with a common tragedy, and no one, not them, not the media, not the administration, knew what to do about it.

"I mean," Sam continued, his voice hitching around his words, "My parents are gone, Mike and Brittney and Schue…God, I still can't believe they're gone…No Quinn…and how many more people? There are still some in the ICU you know. Coach Sylvester…" Sam's bandaged arm trembled on his lap and he grasped it with his good hand, wincing in pain.

"Hey, man," Finn said helplessly as he watched tears fall from this kid's eyes. "Hey, I know life sucks right now. You think I don't know that? Everyone's calling me this big hero and you know what happened yesterday? I got a letter in the mail from a seven-year old kid that said that if I was such a big hero why I couldn't I save his brother. _My_ brother is trying to keep it together, but his boyfriend is the scapegoat now that Leads and Levin are dead. And Eric, who is quite possibly the coolest guy ever, is now sleeping on our couch."

Sam looked over at him, a tight smile on his face. "I think we tie here."

"Nah, you win. At least I still have my mom." Finn leaned against the bleacher, looking at the football field. "Remember when we used to worry about who would be quarterback?"

"Yeah, that was fun." Sam moved slightly, wincing at the pain in his arm. "You think we can go back to that?"

"No…" Finn said slowly. "No, there are too many people gone, too many people leaving. And we shouldn't' really forget, you know? 'Cause if we do, that all of this pain really doesn't mean anything. Then everyone's deaths really were pointless."

"It's pointless anyway. Those guys were deranged. They weren't depressed. They weren't even picked on. They were just crazy." Sam took a deep breath, because if he didn't he thought he was going to cry from the insanity of it all.

Finn touched Sam's shoulder very, very gently. "You want to come over my house? It's the center for the walking wounded, but it's nice to know that some people are still alive." He sighed, "Look, I know it's terrible, but you have to look at the silver lining."

"Sam!" They both whipped around to see a man coming around the bleachers, looking exhausted and scared.

"Who's that?" Finn asked, surprised to find himself tensing up. Was this the new way of the world, no matter what he was telling Sam? Was he always going to jump at the sight of strangers, at loud noises, at unexpected events?

"My brother," Sam said, drawing in a deep breath before calling across the desolate field, "Hey, Dean!"

Dean climbed the steps in four long strides, concern passing to anger in that brief time. "You scared the hell out of me, Sam! I come home from the hospital, coming off a freakin' forty hour shift, and my kid brother, who's supposed to be at home because his arm is broken in six places, is gone and I got this note," Dean pulled out a crumpled piece of half-paper, "Quinn's gone. I'm out. See you later." He looked at his little brother over the paper. "Does that sound like staying in the house to you?"

"What do you want from me, Dean?" Sam asked quietly, "I'm seventeen and this is _Lima_."

"That's no longer a valid argument, kiddo." Dean sat on the bench next to Finn. "God, I used to think this was the most boring place in the world."

"Me too." Finn seconded. "Now we're on the map right next to Columbine. Worst school shooting ever, did you know that?"

"I heard something like. The hospital a mess – they've hauled all the Senior med students over to be interns, and they're all running around 'cause they have no idea what's going on." Dean sighed, scrubbed a hand over his face, "And they just keep dying…"

The three sat quietly on the bleachers, looking out over the football field, at the school that was suddenly imposing, intimidating, _scary_.

"Hey," Dean said quietly, "Remember that game a couple weeks ago? I think it was Lima versus Cherokee…"

"You mean the one where I got my arm pulled out of its socket by a three-hundred pound monster? Yeah, I vaguely remember that." Finn smiled at Sam's words. Suddenly dislocation was nothing, and the frown on Sam's face wiped the grin off his own. Sam could have played football at a Division II school. Now he would probably never be able to grip a ball again.

"Well, I was on the sideline, dead-tired, and a couple of ditzy Freshmen were behind me…"

The story spun on, and Finn found himself laughing, smiling, forgetting, almost, that this had been a battle zone. Forgetting, almost, that he wasn't supposed to be laughing, that he was supposed to be mourning, grieving. Almost forgot about the event looming in the not-too-distant future when he'd have to return to this school.

And what would happen then?

**Kurt and Blaine and 'Baby it's Cold Outside'? It was 3 minutes long and they stole the show.**

**Anyways, please review.**


	14. One

_"We're One but we're not the same, well we hurt each other than we'll do it again. You say: love is a temple, love a higher law, love is a temple, love a higher law. You ask for me to enter and then you make me crawl and I can't keep holding on to what you got when all you got is hurt." **U2 (the song Glee sang at Schue's funeral)**_

_**.***.**_

**October 11th 2010**

It was the first round of funerals.

The bodies had been kept in storage, identified by stricken parents. One of the dead had been a thirteen-year-old girl, young for high school. Another had been eighteen, had just got his acceptance to West Point and was going to celebrate after school.

Twenty-two dead, when all was said and done.

Everyone went to Mr. Schuester's funeral. Almost two thousand kids and twenty people from the media, not to mention Schue's ex-wife, his parents, cousins, uncles…

Finn stuck close to Puck, who looked like he was going to pass out from the hustle and bustle of the crowd. He wondered if they should skip the burial. They were definitely skipping the two mile walk to the cemetery.

But Puck wasn't alone. It was the first time the survivors got together after the shooting. The worst cases hadn't been released from the hospital yet, but there were two more wheelchairs next to Artie, a boy and girl who had begged parents and hospital staff to go to the brave man's funeral.

The Glee club naturally came together. Puck was sitting in a chair next to Eric, both quite pale; Artie sat stoically next to Tina, whose habitual black for once made her blend in. She was crying, hadn't stopped for days. Mike had been buried the day before and his strict, traditional family had not spoken at the funeral. She had, though. Sitting beside the coffin she murmured every quiet word she had expected to share with her boyfriend in a lifetime.

Lifetime. It used to be such a long word to Tina, a word with so much age that she could barely grasp the concept of living for a century. Now she realized that a lifetime may be broken in an instant.

Kurt and Mercedes were close together, arguing. Mercedes said she would sing a song during the wake, something religious, because that would have made Schuester smile. Kurt, arm fixed but now sporting several pins and a sling that was attached to his chest, said that some funeral attendees may not understand.

"I don't care!" Mercedes snapped, "And I think the whole Glee club should do it together. He was our teacher more than anyone's."

"That's a good idea." Rachel piped up from under Finn's arm. She felt nervous, being around people who had been injured. Already she could see lines being drawn between those who were hurt in the massacre and those who weren't. "The song, I mean. Maybe something simple? Amazing Grace…"

"I second that," Artie said, swiping his sleeve across his eyes. People had stopped trying to hide tears this week, were only attempting to control them. "Singing is just what people need right now."

"We're gonna be on the news again," Kurt said, biting his lip and looking at Eric. There had been constant calls from newspapers, even a couple of cameras camped out on their yard. Vultures, happy for blood if it meant a good story. So far, Eric had been able to avoid them, but once the media, once Lima knew the name of someone to blame Eric's life would become hell.

Santana, the last of the Cheerios, put an end to the discussion. She wasn't wearing her uniform, instead dressed in a long black dress she'd stolen from Brittney years ago, and her voice had changed along with her attire. Lower, darker, more emotional. "Me and Brittney were talking about our funerals a couple months ago," at all the surprised stares, she snapped, sounding a little more like the old Santana, "Don't look at me like that, you know how you can talk about weird shit with your best friend."

There was a ripple of laughter quickly stifled. They all had forgotten they weren't supposed to be laughing yet, especially not at a funeral.

"Anyway, she said she liked it when people sang at funerals. She said it was…comforting." A hitched sob, and Puck was the one who reached for her, wincing as his wounds were remembered.

"We're all going to Britt's funeral, Santana," Artie said, "And we'll sing there."

"Just like you'll sing here," Eric said, making everyone look at him. He was an outsider, after all, a person let into the sanctuary of Glee club because he was dating Kurt and crashing with him and Finn. But he was an outsider, with an outsider's point of view, and he knew that singing was the right move. "But not Amazing Grace. Sing something…fun."

"Fun?" Finn said, suddenly, irrationally angry. Who was this guy, anyway? Who was he to say what they should do about Schuester….Schue, who had been the only teacher to ever really, truly pay attention to him. Schue, who was the true hero here, who had gone down in a hail of bullets protecting the students he so obviously adored. "Fun? You didn't even know him!"

He made a move towards Eric, to do what he didn't know. Shake him, probably, or just continue yelling. Kurt inserted himself between his brother and his boyfriend, hands up in a _calm down _gesture as Eric continued to speak, voice high and earnest, from behind him.

"Look, this is sad, really, and I can't imagine how you guys are feeling, but don't you think that this should be a celebration of his life? Don't you think he'd rather be remembered as the guy who had some really great kids sing a really great song at his funeral?"

"I think he'd rather be alive." Tina said, speaking for the first time though her tears, but she was nodding. She understood this need to do something different. Because Mr. Schuester, and Mike, and Brittney…they weren't just some random people. They were Glee people, Glee's people.

"I agree with the kid," Puck said, nodding at Eric, who looked relieved and grateful that someone had taken up for him. "I'm sick of being depressed. Let's do something Schue would have really liked."

"I guess it's more Journey then," Rachel said, but she was smiling. Everyone was smiling, just a little bit, even Finn. This was something productive, something revolutionary, something that felt so much like what Schue would have done that it had to be the right thing. They were taking funerals in a new direction.

.***.

"I don't know how other people will react to you guys singing U2 at a funeral." Burt Hummel said, opening the front door three hours later. "But that was definitely the best one I've ever attended."

"It was all Eric's idea." Kurt said, beaming at Eric in a way that made the drummer blush and put a reflexive hand up to his hair. He winced as his stitches pulled, though, a lasting reminder that he had been shot just days ago.

"I didn't even sing. You and Rachel are amazing, Finn." Eric said, looking at Finn out of the corner of his eye. He didn't know about Kurt's step-brother, the quarterback who had thrown Kurt into trashcans just a year ago. He wanted to be friends…he just didn't know if the feeling was mutual. "You were great too, Kurt."

And when he looked at Kurt…well, his stomach did this flippy thing and he suddenly lost the ability to form a reasonably good sentence. Was it only a week ago they'd been shouted out of a theater and Eric had wanted to break it off and head back for the closet full-sprint? They seemed to have aged a year in a week. As awful as the experience had been, Eric knew that it was the shooting that had matured their relationship. The shooting, and the fact that Eric had jumped in front of bullets to save Kurt, was the only reason he had a place to sleep tonight.

"Well, I know I'll have those songs stuck in my head for the rest of the week." Carol said, going to the kitchen to start the kettle and humming _With or Without You_ absent-mindedly.

Everyone who'd attended the funeral – everyone that mattered, at least – seemed to understand what the Glee club was doing when they got up as a group to sing _With or Without You _and _Still Haven't Found (What I'm Looking For) _and_ One_. Maybe it was the quietly Christian undertones or just the fact that the Glee club was so damn good, but by the end people were swaying, hugging, crying, singing. They'd managed to bring two thousand students and adults who had survived a horrific event together through music, the great equalizer, the thing that managed to transcend cultures and language and move the human spirit.

It was a gift Eric wouldn't mind having, if only because he'd been feeling so lousy about himself since the shooting. The media, labeling him as the impetus of Mitch and Brad's rampage, his mother, denouncing him as a son and condemning him to hell, the fact that he'd been shot twice by people he used to call friends…yes, Eric would like to feel good about himself for once.

"Hey Kurt…" Eric began, sitting on the edge of the bed while Kurt unfurled the sleeping bag for Finn. Eric had, of course, offered to sleep on the floor – he was imposing, he was a burden, he was the gay kid who couldn't go home because his mother was a fanatic. But Kurt had shouted him down, saying that a guy with seventy-eight stitches and three surgeries and two bullet holes in a week shouldn't be sleeping on the floor. Kurt said he'd sleep on the floor, and would have done it if Finn hadn't walked in just as Kurt was going to get on the floor. "What are you doing?" Finn shouted, concerned and angry and frustrated and grief-stricken and now his brother was trying to sleep on the hard ground with a shattered arm. He'd dragged his bed across the hall and said it was time for an old fashioned slumber party.

Three teenage boys in the same room was oddly comforting, especially after a week of such misery. They laughed sometimes, sang more often, and just plain talked quietly about school and their lives and what they thought other people were doing that that moment. A chance for three semi-strangers who'd been thrown together by fate to make the best of it.

So here they were, with Finn assuming the position on the ground with the sleeping bag and Eric looking pale and pitiful with Kurt changing his bandages. "Hey, Kurt, you think there'll still be Glee?"

Everything stopped. Somehow it had never occurred to Finn or Kurt that with no Schuester there would be no Glee club.

"There has to be Glee." Kurt said, eyes huge. He'd met everyone in Glee, everyone. Glee was the reason his father was married, the reason Finn was his step-brother. Glee had..had saved him. "There has to be."

Finn was quiet, unraveling the sleeping bag and thinking. Because he didn't think there'd be a Glee club. Glee would mean that everything might possibly work out okay. Things may possibly stay the same.

And he knew that, if people ever got up the nerve to go back to McKinley High, things were going to be very, very different.

**There's still so much _badness _to write about. It's so sad. Don't worry, though, these guys are tough. They'll be okay.**

**Anyway, please review.**


	15. Bitch of Living

_"God I dreamed there was an angel who could hear me through the wall as I cried out, like in Latin, "This is so not life at all! Help me out, out of this nightmare!" **Spring Awakening**_

_**.***.**_

**October 14th, 2010**

Santana was crying, and Puck didn't know what to do about it.

Usually they'd fuck. He didn't want it to sound that crass, but there was really no other word for it. It wasn't making love, or even sex. It was hard and rough, him and Santana both grappling for the top position. And he was good at it. Really good at it.

But now…now he had casts and bandages and strict orders from doctors that _that_ kind of exertion would put him out of commission for months. And Santana kept on crying. And he didn't know what to do.

"Can I do something?" Puck asked quietly. This was not a question Puck pre-shooting would say, but he had changed, matured maybe. "You want me to call Artie?" He didn't begrudge his girl hanging out with the cripple, because Artie had so obviously loved Brittney, because right now Puck knew that there were few things further from Santana's mind than cheating on him.

"I don't know what to do!" Santana sobbed, rubbing her eyes with her balled hands in a way that made her look very, very young, and cute, and vulnerable. "Britt…and Mike…and then _Quinn_ -" And Puck would have had a talk with Quinn if he had a clue where she went. Running out before the dust of the blast had even really started to settle, running out without even telling him, her ex, her baby-daddy if nothing else. Running out on Santana and Finn and him and the Glee club…yes, Puck would have had words with the girl, if he could.

And now…now they were talking about school again, about making kids who'd been shot and paralyzed and hit and hurt go back to a place where people had _died_, where their friends had died. Were they were expected to learn about calculus and the War of the Austrian Succession and _The Sound and the Fury_ in a place where so much badness had happened? Puck didn't think that was possible.

"Just hold me." Santana sobbed, something so unlike the other, flippant, defiantly confident Santana that Puck did exactly what she said. He held her, and pretended everything was going to be okay.

.***.

Eric was very close to freaking out.

There had been another phone call this morning. Now that it was common knowledge that he was staying with Kurt (his _boyfriend_, some people would hiss, glaring at him) there had been calls. Not many, but still…

Finn got calls, too. Calls and letters from all over the country, telling him how brave and selfless he was to stop the shooting before it could hurt more people. Finn would be as polite as he could when he was called to the phone, but more often than not he would find a way to hang up on them. He barely glanced at the letters before sighing them and putting them in the fire along with the ones Puck had received.

"As if I need to be congratulated for saving my own brother." Finn muttered, and Kurt would gently bump Finn's shoulder with his own, a thanks of sorts for leaving out the _step_ part of the word "brother," for saving him in the first place.

But Finn's letters were all overwhelmingly positive, gushing out praises to a new national hero, an All-American celebrity. And why not? Finn certainly looked the part: high school quarter back with decent grades and a great voice and good looks. Oh, and a pretty girlfriend.

The phone calls for Eric…well, it was impossible to tell which were for him, when the phone rang every ten minutes or so, but he would try to intercept them before Finn or Burt or, worse, Kurt got to the phone.

And then, about two days in to his stay at the Hummel's, Burt got the phone first. Eric was barely paying attention – he was on the couch with Kurt and Finn, mediating the game of Mario Cart. It wasn't until he heard several choice words yelled from the kitchen, followed by the slam of the phone going back to its base, that Eric looked up. Finn paused the game, but it was Kurt who called out first. "Dad, what's wrong?"

Burt came in, and Eric's heart sank. He knew that look of barely controlled rage, had seen it on Burt before. "How long have these phone calls been coming?" Burt asked, voice low and menacing, and Eric found himself cringing away from the tone.

Finn and Kurt were silent, looking at him, stuck in the middle. Eric ran a hand through his hair automatically, and by now he was so used to the twinges of pain that he didn't even notice them. "For a couple of days. Since the hospital."

"You shouldn't have to take that." Burt said, deadly serious. Besides Eric, Finn winced. He recognized that tone from the blowout in the basement and was starting to piece together the ugly truth. "When those people call, you tell me."

Eric nodded, looking down at his hands, embarrassed beyond belief to feel the sting of tears in his eyes. "I just…I don't know. They might be right."

"Hey!" Burt said, surprising all of them with his volume and tone and making Eric jump. "You don't say that. You didn't tell those boys to shoot everyone, even if you were their friend once. And it's not because you're gay. Kurt's gay. You think he caused this?"

"No!" Eric protested, tired of this argument. It was okay for Kurt to be gay – Eric didn't even think of him that way. Kurt was amazing and beautiful and a great singer and a great person and a great friend and he happened to like guys. For Eric it was different. His mother had certainly told him that – he was a crime against nature. "But I still feel like I could have prevented it. Last week when Mitch and Brad called…"

"They called you?" Finn asked, eyebrows rising into his hairline. He didn't know the exact content of the phone call Burt had just received but he could guess. He'd said some of those things to Kurt, once, and had sometimes even joined in on locker room trash talking directed at 'all those homos.' "When?"

"After the movies." Eric said, chewing his bottom lip and refusing to look at Kurt, who was looking more and more furious by the second. "They told me…well, they said that they were planning something, and they might not have done it at all but now that I…came out of the closet…they realized how much evil in the school they had to eradicate." Eric shrugged, eyes flitting up to Burt's, Kurt's, Finn's, meeting each of the for only a fraction of a second. They all looked so _angry_.

"I didn't mean to!" Eric cried, afraid that he'd be turned out of the only place he had left to go, or worse, that Kurt would hate him like everyone else did. "I didn't mean to ignore them, but I'd been getting teased all day – nothing like that. Mostly slushies or getting pushed into lockers or the dumpster dive – but a lot of people…well, you know how it is, Kurt. Most people at McKinley just don't care, but there's that small faction…"

"The jocks." Kurt said, nodding, "Karofsky and Azimo and those Neanderthals. Yeah, I know." Kurt ghosted a hand over Eric's back, afraid that any more touching (like hugging, or kissing, which is what Kurt wanted to do right now: kiss that fear away) would make Eric shy away from him. "Babe, you don't have to take that."

"I know, Kurt, I know." Eric looked down at the bandages on his chest, at Kurt's arm. "But knowing doesn't stop me from feeling like this, and Kurt…I feel like I caused this. I feel like this is my fault." He stood up, unable to stay in the room any longer. He turned, offering a watery smile to Finn, Burt, Kurt, staring at him in something like horror and pity. "The phone calls aren't a big deal, Mr. Hummel. Really."

When he left, there was a coldness in the room as the three Hummels stared at each other, realizing that the mass slaughter in the school was just the beginning, the hospital stay was just the beginning. Healing, moving on, was going to take longer than they'd thought.

**Yeah, we know. Very Christmas-y.**

**Look, we don't usually say much about reviews, but there's been a seriously low amount for these last few chapters. Is the story not interesting? Too predictable? Too depressing? C'mon, we're trying to become halfway decent writers here. In the spirit of the season of giving?**

**Anyway, worth a shot. Have a happy New Year, everyone. **


	16. Let it Go This Too Shall Pass

_'Cause if your mind don't move and your knees don't bend, well don't go blamin' the kids again." **OK Go**_

_**.***.**_

**October 16th 2010**

Artie didn't want to go back to school.

Brittney's death had plunged him into a depression that he hadn't expected. After all, he'd only been going out with her for a month, but she was…well, Brittney was hot, of course, but more than that she was sweet and naïve and incredibly cute. And the fact that she'd been killed with one well-placed bullet shocked him to his core.

He'd tried getting a hold of Santana. Santana, who would always scoff at the sight of him, remind Brittney that she could do better than a cripple, but then grudgingly include Artie in whatever activity they were doing. Santana, who was Brittney's best friend, who was as broken up about this death as Artie was…Santana wouldn't even see him.

And he hadn't been able to convince his parents that he couldn't go back to McKinley. Like Finn and Puck, he was hailed as a hero in the newspapers for getting Mike and the girls to safety despite the bullet in his own leg (the one Artie couldn't feel, but very, very few articles mentioned that.) So he was there the day McKinley reopened.

He rolled towards the handicapped entrance, waving his father away. If he had to go back to school, he would treat it as normal as possible (normal? Without Brittney and Mr. Schue and Mike and a dozen other people?) He ran into a girl trying to negotiate her own wheelchair up the ramp. She was obviously newly paralyzed.

"Need some help?" Artie asked, maneuvering himself closer to her. "I can't believe you're coming back already. After I got my wheelchair I couldn't move for a month."

"I'm a fast healer." The girl said, leaning forward in the seat and slamming her palms against the wheels. "I just want to feel normal, you know? And I couldn't take my parent's hovering for another day."

"Sure." Artie agreed. "I think that's why everyone showed up. We just can't stand sitting around doing nothing anymore."

The girl finally got her wheel unstuck and the two rolled together up the ramp, Artie stopping every once in a while to make sure she could keep up. He was about to ask her what her name was when the worst possible thing happened.

A car backfired.

Screams _everywhere_, including the girl right next to him. "It's okay!" Artie said, reaching out a hand to her, "It's okay!" But he couldn't deny the fact that he'd just jumped out of his own skin, and when the girl started sobbing uncontrollably Artie backed off, looking at her warily.

She pulled a cell phone out of her bag and punched in a number. "I can't do this daddy!" She cried into the phone, "Please, I can't be here yet!"

Artie patted her on the shoulder. No harm, no foul. He wouldn't be here himself except that he also couldn't stand being at home. He rolled into the school and groaned. "How the heck do you expect a kid in a wheelchair to pass through a metal detector?" He snapped at the guard next to him, who looked at him impassively and pointed to the machine.

It was going to be a long day.

.***.

_"The McKinley shooting is further proof that it is America's acceptance of homosexuality that will kill our children." _Karofsky taped the article from the church's bulletin to Eric's locker, so when he struggled in on the first day of school, not quite strong and not quite confident, the first thing he saw was misery.

He should have been a hero. Like Puck, Finn, Artie, and Schue, he'd saved somebody that day, sacrificed his own well-being so that someone he loved had a better chance at life. Unlike them, he wasn't written up and commended for his actions. He was condemned, because it was his sexual orientation that had caused the shooting in the first place.

And so many people were behind this viewpoint that Eric was starting to believe it himself.

Finn snatched the paper out of Eric's shaking hands only after Eric had read it through four times. "Don't listen to them, Eric." Finn said, putting his arm around the much shorter boy and high-tailing it to a convenient niche in the hallway before Eric started hyperventilating. "You haven't been bullied much have you?"

"Not before I came out." Eric said, staring blankly at Finn's shoulder. "Before I was just…just a normal guy. Enough friends and decent grades and band, where I could escape to when home was just too much." He sighed, leaning against the wall. "And then I came out and everything changed."

"It's not true, man." Finn said, and he could feel the words lose power each time he said them. He and Kurt and Burt and the rest of Glee were quiet voices in a deafening sea that was trying to beat Eric to their point of view. "I swear this is not your fault, but listen to me: you can't let them see you break down. Seriously. If Karofsky thinks he's getting to you he'll just keep at it. Act like it doesn't affect you."

"I'm not a good actor." Eric said, shrugging off Finn's hand with a sigh. "I just thought things would be different, you know? I thought that after we all went through this thing together we'd all…"

"What?" Finn asked, suddenly very tired. "Hold hands and sing Kumbaya?"

"I just thought we'd all figure out that everyone's life sucks." Eric said, "And the only difference between the good guys and the bad guys is how we deal with it."

And Finn…found he had nothing to say to that.

.***.

They walked into the Glee room mostly because no one really wanted to go home to over-protective parents (or, in Sam's case, a distraught older brother). They were all surprised, very surprised, to find Coach Sylvester sitting in the room, mouth pressed in the familiar hard, thin line despite the part of her face that was missing.

Sue Sylvester had been plastered on the covers of just about every magazine in the country, had been hailed a hero along with the rest, earning tons of brownie points because she'd saved a disabled girl.

One bullet had left a deep groove in her left cheek, giving her face a lopsided, pitying appeal. But her still hard, proud mouth made everyone know that this woman was still the hard-ass bitch they all knew and feared.

"Hello all."She said, raising one eyebrow and giving them the half-smile that they associated with another budget cut. "In light of Mr. Schuester's…heroic death…I thought that you all might want to finish out your season. For him." She looked around at them and lowered her voice slightly. She'd already been through this today with her Cheerios who had, after all, lost Brittney and Quinn in quick succession as well. She didn't know how to deal with the tragedy herself, and trying to teach teenagers to "get over" the deaths seemed cruel. Still, she had to try. For that hedge-hog-haired mongrel.

"How?" Rachel asked first. "We don't have a teacher and we're down three kids. How do we make up for that?"

"In light of the circumstances, I called the heads of your performance circuit. They are willing to let you perform two members short. That means you only have to recruit one person." Sylvester stood up. She still ached everywhere, and needed to go home to empty her voicemail filled with well-wishes from people she'd never met.

"You can do whatever you want. I'll get you transportation, I'll let you perform whatever songs you want. I'm not going to fight you for the rest of this season." She looked at their stunned faces before heading for the door, then whipped back around.

"You were all a part of a terrible tragedy. All of you are still hurting and I get that, but you have two choices here. You can let the grief consume you or you can battle on. The first path is easier." She conceded, nodding to herself, "Much easier. But who ever said life was supposed to be easy?"

**Yeah, who did?**

**Anyway, thanks everyone for the reviews. We were in a slump and second-guessing ourselves and now we know exactly where this story is going. For those who said they didn't see much of a plot...well, there was a shooting and they're getting over it. That's the whole plot. For those who like Eric: good. We like him, too. He's going to be in the rest of the story and a main character. For those who don't like Eric and think we should stick to canon characters...we hear you. And we'll try not to make it too AU.**


	17. Devil Town

_"I was living in a devil town. Didn't know it was a devil town. Oh, Lord, it really brings me down about the devil town." **Tony Lucca**_

_**.***.**_

**October 24th 2010**

Puck rolled his eyes. "Do you really think this is going to help? I mean, I can barely walk and the kid is worse off than I am. Can Sam and Hummel even hold a ball?"

"I'm not going to bowl, Noah." Kurt said from across the counter where he was making sandwiches and putting together thermoses full of soup and pulling out sodas for the outing. "I'm the cheering squad. And I'm making sure Eric doesn't pull his stitches."

Eric nodded, smiling a little. He was warily looking forward to this outing, the first real "day out" since the shooting. He just hoped that everything went off without a hitch. It seemed like the Glee guys all needed some time to blow off steam.

Usually, Kurt informed him on the way to the bowling alley as Puck and Finn argued about football teams and their football team and TV shows – about everything that didn't matter…usually they would play football, because it was something Finn, Puck, Mike, and Sam knew how to do well and Kurt and Artie didn't mind watching or recruiting other players for the game. But now…now they'd lost Mike, and Sam would never throw again, and Puck was hurt worse than he let anyone know, and Finn was floundering, trying to keep the walking wounded together.

So they were trying bowling, which everyone liked even if none of them would admit it. Artie met them there, rolling his eyes at Puck's exclamations that there was "no freakin' way a crip could bowl." Obviously, Artie had been to the bowling alley before, and the manager produced a small slide-like device. All Artie had to do was aim and push the ball with the right amount of force.

"It's harder than it looks." He said as Puck protested loudly to the device, "But I figure Sam and Kurt can use it too."

"I don't bowl." Kurt said, tapping his slender fingers against his cast and looking protectively at Eric, who had been drawn into a conversation with Sam. He always knew he liked Sam…

"I'm going to try going lefty." Sam said, holding up the hand that hadn't been shattered. "Figure that if I can bowl with it maybe I can throw with it one day. I'll never be an NFL star but at least I could play in a community league."

"Good idea." Finn said with a touch of admiration.

Sam shrugged, "I can't have a bum hand forever."

Over the course of the afternoon, other instances of the guys' methods of coping with new handicaps – emotional and physical – came to light. Puck let it slip that he was officially dating Santana. "I'm a one-woman kind of guy now." He said, shaking his head, "When did that happen?"

"I don't think I could date anyone for a while." Artie mused, tapping his fingers anxiously on the arms of his chair. "But I've been seeing Brittney's brother a couple of times a week. Puck, wipe that smirk off your face and if you say some gay joke I'll get Eric to hit you...he's really nice. We just get lunch and find someplace quiet to talk about her, you know? Like therapy, I guess."

"Have any of you guys seen the therapist the school brought in?" Sam asked, downing one of the Cokes Kurt had packed while they watched Finn knock over one pin out of ten. "He seems like a whack job."

"The school knows I'm not living with my mom anymore." Eric said, rolling his eyes, "They sentenced me to see the shrink three times a week during my study period. He's an idiot. He asked me what I did before the shooting and I said, 'band, mostly,' and then he asked me why I don't do band now." At the guys' blank stares he clarified, "There is no band. The director was the other teacher killed and more than half the kids have left…and this guy asked me why I'm not in the band. I honestly don't think he even knows what he's doing."

"He's a head shrinker. They're all idiots." Sam said, "My brother would probably make me go to one…he keeps asking me all these questions, wanting to know where I'm going to be every second of the day."

"He's worried about you." Eric said, smiling a little as Puck bowled a beautiful strike. "He cares. Don't worry, he'll back off after a while."

"I don't know; my dad hasn't backed off yet. He won't let the media anywhere near the National Hero." Kurt shrugged, bumping his good arm against Eric's. "But I'm with you here, Eric. I think everything will eventually die down." He looked down at his arm, at Puck and Artie and Sam, "Soon, I guess, all we'll have left are the scars."

.***.

Sam wasn't going to tell the guys when everyone was being upbeat and having fun for the first time since the shooting, but sometimes he thought about dying.

There is a feeling he used to get, standing on the second-story balcony in the condo or leaning over the edge of a tall building, a feeling like he wanted to jump. Now he was getting that feeling all the time, and not just when he was in the air. He felt like throwing himself into traffic, or letting himself slip a few inches down in the bathtub (he hated baths but took them now that his hand was in a cast. No way was he going throw the whole plastic-bag-and-duct-tape thing every day).

The thing is that he'd never even thought about suicide before. He was a generally happy person, even after his parent's deaths. Which is why it was weird when Artie's dad dropped him back off at the tiny condo he shared with his brother and he started crying as soon as he walked in the door.

"Sam?" Dean said, his voice rumbling, low and concerned, from the kitchen. He came running out wearing a frilly apron Sam always laughed at, spatula in hand, ready to ward off attackers. He stopped a foot away from his younger brother, "What happened?"

"I don't know why I'm crying." Sam said, using his sleeve to blot his face and wincing as his hitching sobs jarred his hand. "It was such a good day…" And then he started off again, his tears catching him by surprise.

"Hey…" Dean said, letting the spatula tumbling to the floor as he wrapped Sam in a hug. He felt so useless when dealing with his brother, who was usually so independent and smart and popular and _together_, even when he first moved in after hearing of their parents' deaths and their sudden poverty. He didn't know how to fix a broken Sam, one with a girlfriend who'd taken off and friends who'd died and a school that he no longer felt safe in.

And because he had no idea how to really fix anything, he just held Sam until the sobs stopped, until his brother lay exhausted against his chest, and prayed to God that that would be enough.

.***.

Puck went home to find Santana sitting on his couch painting his sister's nails in ten different hues of yellow. She was smiling, giggling along with Alice at some old "I Love Lucy" they'd found on television. Puck dropped onto the couch next to them, feeling tired and warm and full, a feeling that only came after a good day spent with good friends.

He barely caught Santana's sidelong glance to his sister before they both pounced, pinning him down and shrieking with laughter as they attacked his huge hands with their makeup. No one else would have noticed, if they had been looking in on this scene, that both Santana and Alice worked very hard not to touch Puck's side where the bandages and sore muscles still were.

What they would have noticed is that Puck barely fought back, although he cursed loud and long enough to make his mother yell at him from the kitchen. They would have noticed Santana kiss him, long and slow, even as she was paining his pinky nail and particularly gaudy shade of yellow. They would have noticed Puck's affectionate ruffling of his sister's hair as he got up, already heading for the kitchen to wipe off the nail polish, leaving the girls on the couch with their giggles.

And this person, looking in on the scene, would never have known that friends were dead and friends were gone and these two had been shot not a month ago. Because appearances may be deceiving but this group were happy as larks, happy as a bird with a worm or someone who had gotten both the one in their hand and the two in the bush.

For that couple of minutes, they realized that even after the tragedy they could still be blissfully, breath-takingly, shatteringly happy.

**Any Gleeks out there know when the next part of the season is coming on? We've been trying to find out online without success...**

**Anyways, please review.**


	18. Cry, Little Sister

_Cry, little sister (Thou shall not fall)  
Come to your brother (Thou shall not die)  
Unchain me, sister (Thou shall not fear)  
Love is with your brother (Thou shall not kill) **Gerald McMann**  
__**.***.**_

**October 2010**

This is how the school looked a week or so after it opened:

Artie was wheeling around, trying to teach two or three other kids how to use their wheelchairs. This was giving him a lot of pride in how mobile he was: these kids were still in pain and Artie remembered that vividly, and they were scared that the pain would never go away. Artie remembered that, too, and gave them some advice about what to say to get the best painkillers and the kids looked at him and smiled because this sixteen-year-old geek had given them more help than their overbearing parents or unfeeling physical therapists had, and they were adults who were supposed to know what they were doing.

Finn was trying to hold it together, but he found his life spiraling out of control. Newspapers still stood outside his door, looking for a follow-up story when the news was slow, and there were still calls, asking him to interview on local news stations. Worse, though, were the signs that were appearing for Eric. The ones on the front lawn that said BURN IN HELL and YOUR FAULT and everyone's favorite, the old one-word message of FAG.

He was trying to keep it together, but Eric would walk outside and shake and Kurt looked murderous and so, so sad. School was no better and in some ways worse, with kids ducking and cringing and crying at the drop of a hat, with the empty seats where people were dead or gone, with the classrooms filled with different teachers, wary teachers…

Mercedes couldn't quite remember how to be happy anymore. She was being extra nice to Santana, because she worse for the girl than she did for anyone else (except for Artie) because the ice queen had lost her two best friends and had gotten shot herself.

But already Santana, along with Rachel and Tina and Finn, were seeing a divide in the school between those who had been hurt in the shooting and those who hadn't. Those who had been hurt were…suspicious, wary of those who had no scars, because they couldn't understand, could never understand, the absolute fear that accompanied a bullet and torn muscles and blood.

Sam was still thinking about suicide in the abstract, and Kurt was desperately trying to convince Eric not to definitely think about suicide, and Eric was wishing desperately for a way to just end it all, because he couldn't stand the names and the crap. He, like every other teenager, thought that the world was against him.

Except in Eric's case it was true.

.***.

**Excerpt from The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Sorrow Bulletin **

**October 26th 2010**

Brothers and Sisters:

Our beautiful town of Lima is under attack. On the eighth of October, not three weeks ago, two Christian boys were armed as they entered McKinley High School's main building. They first visited this very church, remaining in our sanctum until an hour before they began the shooting. They were praying for guidance and the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, bestowed it upon them.

My fellow Christians, I understand that many of you lost a friend or loved one in the shooting, and the slaughter of children will always be a tragedy, but we must realize that our brothers Andy Levin and Mitchell Leads were following the guidance of God. We must bring this problem to national attention, and occasionally an act of violence can bring peace further down the road.

America cannot ignore the problem of homosexuality any longer. When GRID (later dubbed 'AIDS') first appeared I was a believer that it was God's way of enforcing the doctrine put down in his scriptures. Now I realize that this disease was merely the beginning of a call to end this perversion in our midst and condemn these sinners.

On the morning of October 8th, Levin and Leads walked into McKinley with two targets: their old friend, Eric Hartman, who had just 'come out of the closet' so to speak, and his new boyfriend, a young man whose name has not yet been released to the press…

**Excerpt from the Christian Science Monitor**

**October 28th 2010**

This newspaper can no longer ignore the attacks a small church in the town of Lima is making against a teenage boy, a victim of the terrible McKinley High shooting on October 8th.

Hiding under the cloak of religion and only distributing leaflets on a community level, The Church of Perpetual Sorrow (denomination unknown) has been systematically destroying a homosexual boy's life. By claiming he was the flame that sparked the two McKinley shooters into committing the atrocity that has gained international infamy, this "church" has isolated the young man to the point where he was driven from his home by his own mother.

This newspaper urges the media that has been swallowing the propaganda spread by this so-called institution of God to consider that by perpetuating this slander they may cost a boy his life…

.***.

**Posted on a bulletin board in the atrium of McKinley high school**

ATTENTION BAND MEMBERS! The McKinley high school marching band no longer qualifies to compete in the Band of America (BOA) organization due to our sudden and terrible loss of available marchers and director. Concert band will resume in January.

SPANISH HONORS SOCIETY is requesting a new supervisor for their club. The death of Mr. Schuester has left us in a tight spot. Any teacher willing to stay awake during the meetings would help our prestigious organization. Contact Sara Hernandez in C-3 during homeroom.

SO YOU WANT TO BE A CHEERLEADER? A one-time-only event! Mid-season try outs for several open spots on our squad will take place on October 30th after school. If you have stitches or broken bones, you cannot try out. If you are late, you cannot try out. If Coach Sylvester doesn't like your shoelaces, you cannot try out.

NEW DIRECTIONS is looking for a male and female singer to help us achieve our dream of going to Nationals this year. Any person with a pulse that can keep time is welcome to audition any time. Ever. Really.

Amongst these posters are handwritten notes, most ending with RIP. There are also pictures, and prayers, and flowers, and other small mementoes.

In some ways the board has turned into an embodiment of the student body. It shows how desperately they want to move on, right next to every face, every life cut short, every reason why "moving on" seems like the hardest thing in the world to do.

**Thanks for the dates, guys. Anyone else watch the Golden Globes after the Pats were beaten by NY? Glee totally wins everything!**

**Anyways, please review.**


	19. Superman

_I wish that I could cry. Fall upon my knees. Find a way to lie 'bout a home I'll never see. It may sound absurd, but don't be naive. Even heroes have the right to bleed. **Five For Fighting**  
__**.***.**_

**November 1st 2010**

Sam honked the horn outside the Hummel's house and then settled back in his seat, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel in time to Boston's _More Than a Feeling,_ blasting out of the truck's stereo system.

Eric slipped out of the house, thankful for this opportunity to get away. It had been some smart person at school's idea to post a schedule of everyone's physical therapy sessions on the bulletin board so people could carpool. With nearly forty people stuck in PT for the next couple of months, there was always someone to get a ride with.

"Hey, man." Sam said, reaching across the passenger seat to unlock the door for Eric. "No more paint on the house. Does that mean people are stopping?"

"Nah. The cult is still trying to convince me I'm going to hell." Eric leaned against the seat, closing his eyes. The cult he was referring to was the "church" his mother and a good portion of Lima belonged to. "Mr. Hummel and Finn scrubbed it off already this morning. There'll be more tomorrow."

"Why don't you just call the police?" Sam asked.

"We did. Like, a dozen times. But for some reason they're not taking it so seriously. They spit some crap about not being able to get a squad car out by the house at night to catch the guy…I think they're all just homophobes."

"Or assholes." Sam added, making Eric grin in surprise.

"Yeah."

They drove in comfortable silence, and Sam sighed contentedly. He felt like he was being smothered with pity sometimes. Dean was hovering over him, and Sam knew that it was because his older brother was afraid he'd come home one day to find Sam swinging in the closet (and, sometimes, Sam wasn't so sure this was a crazy thought at all.) Teachers and counselors were trying to get all the kids to talk about their grief, and were becoming more and more persistent as they were met with belligerent teens. What had they been expecting, anyway? That suddenly they would break the norm and actually confide in adults? When had that ever happened?

"Hey, Sam?"

"Yeah man?"

"You ever feel like this is just too much to take? Like, even if you get through another day, it won't matter because it's always going to be like this?"

"Every day, man. Sometimes I'll think 'oh, it'll get better next year, or maybe in college.' But eventually you're going to have to tell people where your hometown is, where you went to high school, and then everyone's going to be looking at you like that."

"Like your life ended on October 4th just like everyone else's." Eric finished, nodding. "And sometimes I think that there'll never be a day when people don't know my name. It's like…I don't even know what it's like. People think that I had a gun that day. That I killed people, too."

"That sucks, Eric." Sam said sympathetically. "My brother's been watching all the news coverage, you know…says there's nothing else on in the hospital…so he knows for a fact that they've never mentioned anything about you jumping in front of those bullets for Kurt."

"I wouldn't mind that." Eric said, uncharacteristically bitter, "There are a lot of heroes from that day that were never really recognized. But it's like I'm the worst thing since Hitler."

"You had the audacity to live." Sam said, shaking his head and ruffling Eric's hair when he looked stricken. "Leads and Levin died. They can't take all the blame, and there's a lot of it, and everyone is just looking for a scapegoat."

"Well, it really sucks to be a scapegoat." Eric said, rubbing his shoulder the same way a lot of kids at McKinley rubbed old wounds. "And sometimes I wonder if it's really worth it. This whole thing. This whole life."

"Me, too." Sam said, thinking of his dead parents and girlfriend who ditched him and dead Glee teacher and all those dead kids and wondering if there will ever be a time when he went to bed and didn't dream about them.

He didn't think so.

.***.

"I didn't know you had a drum set!"

Eric's excited voice floated up the steps from the basement and Finn smiled, putting the grilled cheese sandwiches he'd made on the bureau before turning to the younger boy. "Sure. I was into drumming way before I was into singing."

"I haven't touched a drum since before…" But Eric wouldn't let _that_ interrupt something as important as his love for percussion. "I haven't touched a drum for forever. Can I try?"

"Can you hold a stick?" Finn asked, getting his sticks out of the drawer. Eric furrowed his brow and clenched his bad hand into a fist. He winced in pain, but managed it.

"Give them to me." He dropped the stick twice before managing to get it into a position where he could hold it and looked at the set in anticipation. Drums! And he'd thought he would never touch drums again after what happened to George, his best friend who used to play tenor with him. He started up a quiet rhythm, a simple paradiddle with a bass every four beats.

Finn, who'd been playing drums since he was eight, knew a good player when he saw one, and said as much. Eric blushed, speeding up the rhythm, embellishing, adding, making it beautiful.

"I've never seen you play!"

It was Kurt's excited voice at the top of the stairs that made Eric drop his stick with a clatter, his right hand automatically moving to his left, rubbing it, massaging the joints that hadn't hurt until a second ago.

"I didn't mean to make you mess up." Kurt said guiltily. "I was just so excited…I assumed it was Finn playing."

"I just wanted to see if I could." Eric said, standing up hastily and pushing the sticks at Finn. "It's no big deal."

"You're really good." Finn said, settling onto the chair Eric had just vacated. "I going to embarrass myself coming in after you." He switched one of the sticks for a brush and started an easy eighth note-beat. Kurt, who had hauled out an old electric keyboard, plugged it in and started playing a song that made Eric smile. He used to sing this with George at the end of band practices sometimes, when they were in the back of the field and waiting for five, ten minutes between sets as the woodwinds and brass arranged themselves.

_"I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane, I'm more than some pretty face beside a train." _Eric's voice wasn't low and modulated like Finn's, or high and beautiful like Kurt's. It wasn't perfect. But there was soul to his voice, depth and emotion that none of the other male Glee singers had.

"Wow." Kurt said, fingers stilled over the piano. He caught Finn's eye and the older boy nodded. They'd found their singer in this quiet drummer boy. "Keep going." Kurt said to Eric, who complied easily.

"_It's not easy to be me."_

**It's been a while since we updated, but here's another reason to wake up on Mondays (or, if you're like us, you wake up because you taped Glee to watch on Monday after school, since there's no way two guys would stop a Super Bowl party for something like Glee.)**

**Ah, Super Bowl. Anyways, reviews are, as always, much appreciated.**


	20. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

_Someday I'll be Saturday Night. I'll be back on my feet, I'll be doing alright. It may not be tomorrow, baby, that's okay. I ain't going down. Gonna find a way. **Bon Jovi**_

_**.***.**_

**November 2010**

The second week of November was when everything began spiraling out of control.

You could say that things began spiraling out of control on That Day in October when two dozen kids died, when more than fifty were hurt and everyone was scarred, because now they knew that their school wasn't safe. But the second week of November was when Eric got beat up in the streets on his way home, when a girl broke down in a group therapy session and Santana found a heart, when Puck and Artie try to help Sam and end up getting kicked out of his house.

Santana's happened first. Everyone in the school had to go to these group therapy sessions instead of gym. There were so many kids on medical leave from gym that they just turned the room into a doctor's office. From each class, everyone was split into groups of ten or fifteen and were encouraged to "share their feelings."

Strangely enough…it was working. People were getting a load of stuff off their chests, and sometime in around the end of October the new therapy-instead-of-gym thing was really getting into gear. A lot of people were starting to share. Really share.

Santana wasn't one of those people.

In the second week of November, she sat next to a tall, athletic girl, one of those girls that even Santana couldn't mock, because she was so genuinely _nice. _"Hey." This girl, Bridgett, said to her, blue eyes sad, and Santana nodded her recognition.

People started talking, and Santana more or less zoned out, thinking of Puck and then thinking of Brittney and Quinn and forcing herself to think of Puck again, of his rough hands, his warm lips, the stitches that ran, tight and even, across his chest…

And suddenly Bridgett next to her was talking. Another thing about Bridgett: her voice was beautiful. Quiet, with a hint of humor in every word, and Santana couldn't help listening.

"I've known for a while…I mean the doctor's told me the day it happened, but I guess I was always hoping…it's been over a month, and every day I keep looking for…you know…and it's not there, and I remember all over again." Santana looked at Bridgett. What was she talking about? And was she really _crying_?

"It's not like I wanted a baby, you know. I'm not one of those people who teachers look at and say 'oh, she's made to be a mother.' My sister's one of those people. But I always wanted the option. And I feel sad _all the time_." A hiccup, a half-sob, and Santana put her hand reflexively on Bridgett's leg. She, queen bitch, was _comforting_ someone.

"And I see other people in wheelchairs, and Richie's mind is gone 'cause he took a bullet to the brain, and I know that their lives suck more than mine…but I can't help but think." Another sob, and Santana knew that the flood was coming, that it was close. Bridgett had only a few sentences left in her. "The bullet destroyed my uterus. I'm seventeen years old and infertile. How the hell is that fair?"

Maybe it was the fact that this girl, one who was so polite and respectful, had cursed, had yelled. Maybe it was because Santana leaned over to hug her when the tears began in earnest. But everyone left that session thinking that, good golly, perhaps we are all changed. And not just by the bullets.

.***.

When Karofsky found him on the street, when Eric turned and saw three more jocks in their red jackets, Eric knew there was no way to avoid this. He couldn't say he hadn't been expecting it, but he'd been hoping they'd show a little restraint. After all, he'd nearly died a month ago.

"Where's your boyfriend, fairy? Karofsky said, his voice low. Scary.

Eric thanked all the Gods he knew that Kurt had left school early for physical therapy. At least he wouldn't be involved with this. "What's the matter, Karofsky? This school needs more bruises and blood?" He was proud of his voice: hard, angry. He couldn't win, but he'd put up a hell of a fight.

"That blood is on your head, Hartman." Karofsky warned. "And these fellows and I lost someone very important to us in October."

"Look, I'm sorry about Jackson." Eric really was. He was sorry for every single person who'd died because people he used to count as friends turned out to be madmen. "But I had nothing to do with it…Mitch and Brad -"

"Are dead. And they let you live." Eric managed to duck Karofsky's first punch, but didn't have time to feel proud of himself. The blow to the kidneys stunned him more than they could know, and he was grateful for whoever said, "watch it, man, he's got mad stitches. Don't want him bleedin' internally or nothing."

"Why do you care?"

Eric just managed to follow this conversation from his fetal position on the ground, one arm around his side with the stitches, the other thrown over his head. He prayed that they'd lose interest before they actually killed him…before he lost the battle to the blackness already trying to creep in on him.

"I watched my brother die of internal bleeding, dickhead. He got shot through the chest…it was like watching someone drown."

With those words, the kicking stopped, and the group ran away from the crumpled teenage boy, but not before Karofsky balled up another one of his (cult's/church's) bulletins and wrapped Eric's limp fingers around it, not before he took out his pocketknife and carved three letters into the back of Eric' hand, not deep enough to sever nerves but plenty deep enough to scar for life. FAG.

.***.

Puck had to carry Artie up the couple of steps to Sam's front door, but he managed to do it in such a way that Artie didn't get embarrassed. One of the few nice things you could say about Puck: even before Glee, he'd never, ever hurt Artie. He'd throw Kurt in the dumpster every week and slushy Rachel, no problem, but he always drew the line at hurting the cripple.

"You sure Sam would want to do this? I mean, bowling's one thing, but I'm pretty sure he can't hold a bat with his hand still busted." Artie said.

"It's not about the batting cage, it's about hanging with the guys. Plus, the dude's been moping around ever since Quinn left." There was an edge to his voice, and the knuckles that rapped, hard, on the door, were white from where he had them in a fist.

Sam opened the door, hair still messy from sleep, wearing only jeans. "Hey, guys." He said, opening the door wider so they could enter. "What are you doing here?"

"Nice cast." Artie commented, pointing to the orange cast that covered Sam's hand. "I thought you had blue?"

"Had another surgery yesterday. No big deal, they just needed to put a couple more pins in. I guess I'm not healing just right." Sam looked down at his cast, twisting his arm thoughtfully. "I'm sorta glad, though. I was getting sick of blue."

"Can we sign?" Artie asked, pulling a Sharpie from his pants pocket. Everyone carried Sharpie's now – there were just so many casts to sign.

"Knock yourself out." Sam said, extending his arm. "Still haven't answered my question, though. What are you guys doing here?"

"Puck wants to drag you to the batting cages with us." Artie said, bent in concentration as he drew a pretty good caricature of Sam.

"Yeah, and you better not say no 'cause I know for a fact you haven't done much since Quinn left." Puck said.

Sam used the hand that wasn't casted to rub his neck. "I don't know, guys. I mean, I can't really hold a bat and my hand's been killing me since yesterday –"

"Bullshit!" Puck exclaimed, so suddenly that Sam yanked his arm away from Artie and Artie turned in his chair to stare at Puck. "Bullshit your hand's hurting."

"Screw you!"

"That's not the reason you won't come out with us. You can't stop thinking about Quinn. I get it. I knocked her up last year, I know how she is, and at least I got Santana. But you've locked yourself away in here."

"You don't know anything about me." Sam said, meaning it. Only Quinn had really known him.

For someone who had over sixty still-to-come-out stitches in him, Puck moved fast. He had Sam up against the wall before the quarterback could move out of his way. Artie yelled in surprise, wheeling forward, but he couldn't insert himself between the two and he couldn't haul Puck off.

"You're depressed, Sam. You think I haven't seen this before? And damn if I'm going to let another one of us die because of all this. We already lost too many."

"Get off me!" Sam said, bucking his body, but Puck had all the leverage, all the right angles, and he wasn't going to move until he got some answers out of Sam.

The front door opened and Dean walked in to find his kid brother – his hurt kid brother, his kid brother who'd had surgery _yesterday_ – pinned against the wall by someone twenty pounds heavier than he was. Dean didn't have to think. He ran forward and yanked the guy off, planting himself firmly in front of Sam even as he punched out in the place he knew it would hurt most.

Puck almost blacked out when he got punched in the kidneys by this older guy who'd flown into Sam's house. The only thing that kept him upright was Artie's chair, and he had to lean on it heavily.

"Get out." Dean said, and Puck wondered vaguely if he could ever master a tone like that. Authoritative, angry, chilling to the bone. "I don't know who you are and I don't care. If you don't get out I'll kill you." This wasn't exaggeration, or something to add effect. This guy would actually kill Puck if he stuck around, and they both knew it.

"Dean…" Sam muttered from behind his brother's body, but Puck and Artie were already on their way out the door.

Dean turned around, expert eye surveying Sam's body for injuries. "Are you okay? Did he hurt you?"

Sam pressed his lips together and shook his head before leaving the room, leaving his confused brother to stand in the doorway, trying to figure out exactly what had just happened.

And he had this horrible feeling that he would never figure it out. Could never. Because there are some things you just don't understand unless you were a part of them. Love triangles and war and conspiracies. And waking up one morning thinking your school was the most boring, safe place on earth and going to bed knowing that you didn't know anything at all.

**On that wonderfully upbeat note...Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!**


	21. Suicide Is Painless

_A brave man once requested me to answer questions that are key, "Is it to be or not to be?" And I replied, "Oh, why ask me?" 'Cause suicide is painless. It brings on many changes. And I can take or leave it if I please. **M*A*S*H**_

_**.***.**_

**November 2010: Later that same week.**

That weekend, everything changed.

After the (cult/church) stood in front of the school on Friday, shouting about homosexuality and making strange parallels between that and kids dying in a school, Eric and Kurt fled school grounds. That was also the weekend Sam jumped off a bridge to kill himself. The weekend Santana went to Artie and confessed her love for his dead girlfriend. The weekend Eric's brother came to the Hummel's house and Finn almost sent him to the ER.

But it all started with that cult coming to the school with signs and anger on Friday morning. Kurt, Finn, and Eric drove together every day except this one, because Finn had crashed at Puck's house after working on a project (and isn't it funny that there are still projects, as if the world hadn't stopped turning a month ago?) Which added up to the fact that Kurt and Eric were alone when they were bombarded by people who thought they were going to Hell, people who thought that they should probably try to get there quickly, so they didn't spread their perversion.

Kurt took one look at the signs, one look at Eric shaking next to him, face white, and shook his head. "School is _so_ not worth this." He said, taking eight seconds to message Mercedes and tell her to meet him at the diner. He paused, and then punched in a few more letters. BRING SANTANA.

He'd had his suspicions about Santana and Brittney. No way she needed to see all this, not with the girl she loved six feet under.

Eric was still staring at the crazy people with their crazy hate, and when Kurt slipped an arm around his shoulder (possessively, lovingly, and suddenly a lot of the shouts were aimed directly at them) he still couldn't rip his eyes from his brother, his mother, out there with their own signs.

"Why do they hate us?" Eric mumbled, the same question he posed to Mercedes, Santana, Finn, Rachel, Puck, Artie, Sam, Tina, when they were sitting at the diner an hour later.

Mercedes pursed her lips. "Those guys should so not be using the good Lord as a cover-up. I go to church, too, and I still think Kurt is pretty bad-ass."

"Thanks." Kurt whispered, smiling at her, "But even I don't pretend to think that every church is like this one. I've known too many nice Christian people to let those guys tell me any different." He shook his head, "They're just…there's so _many_ of them."

"Did they hurt you?" Finn asked, and though the question was quiet, there was so much protectiveness in his tone that Kurt threw him an appreciative glance and Eric almost smiled.

"Not physically."

"This is such bull!" Puck seethed, putting a protective arm around Santana. "What the hell are they thinking? Can you even say that kind of stuff outside a school?"

"You can say it anywhere. That's kind of the point of freedom of speech." Rachel pointed out.

"Doesn't mean you _should_ say it." Artie muttered, hands slapping the arms of his wheelchair. Everyone around him nodded except for Sam, who stood up, looking kind of sick.

"I can't take this anymore." He ground out, eyes darting around the room, looking for a quick exit. He wanted Quinn, needed her, but instead he had a throbbing hand and a ruined life that had been torn to shreds by bullets and hate. So he ran, before any of the others could catch his hand, stop him. He ran, so he didn't have to be a part of this life anymore.

.***.

"Hello?"

"Is this Finn Hudson?"

"Yeah. Who's asking?"

"My name is Dean. I'm Sam's brother. We met on the bleachers that day…?"

"Oh. Yeah. What's up, is he alright?"

"I was actually hoping you knew where Sam is. I just walked in the door and…I'm not crazy, am I? He's a teenager, and God knows I went out to a couple of parties, but his hand is still in a cast and it's so late and…."

"Dude, we'll find him. I'll meet you at the school. We'll start at the bleachers."

.***.

Santana and Puck and Artie somehow gravitated back to the diner that evening. Puck had an arm around Santana's shoulders. She was still shaking.

"Those guys at the school really scared you, huh?" Artie asked quietly, eyes dark and unreadable behind his thick glasses.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Santana asked, biting the words out harder than usual.

"Nothing." Artie murmured, staring back down at the table, hand balling into a fist that he repeatedly hit his leg with. Thump. Thump. Right on top of the bullet that had torn up his knee good, not that that meant anything. One of the perks of being in a wheelchair.

Puck stiffened, wrapped his arm more securely around the girl. He'd had his suspicions about Santana and Brittney – hell, once or twice he'd seen them full-on making out. At first, he'd just thought it was another stunt – thought the two would do anything for attention. But the way those guys were railing against queers – sorry, homosexuals. Finn told him that if he ever said 'queer' around Kurt again he'd rearrange his mouth, and Puck believed him – anyway, the way those guys had been outside of the school, the way Santana'd reacted to it...

"I never wanted to be labeled." Santana said, her words dripping with ice, daring one of the boys to contradict her. "That's why I never told anyone about me and Brittney. She wanted to. She was so damn sweet…after I told her I wouldn't go public with it for the fourth time, she went back over to boys. Started dating our resident cripple here."

"We wouldn't have thought any less of you, 'Tana. You know I love me some girl-on-girl." Puck said, squeezing her shoulder.

"I've seen the crap Kurt takes. I never wanted that to be me." Santana buried her head in her hands, "I thought we had our whole lives left, you know? That we'd get out of high school and me and Britt would be together. And then she just…she just _died_ and I don't know what to _do. _I loved her."

Artie put a hand on her leg, patting it awkwardly as Puck swung the now-sobbing girl onto his lap, rubbing soothing circles on her back. "Shh…" He muttered into her hair, eyes focused on some distant point in time where all this would stop making him feel like there was a hole in his soul that could never be filled. "Shh…we loved her, too."

"We loved her, too."

.***.

Somehow, they made their way over the bridge after searching the bleachers, the fields, the school, the diner, and assorted friend's houses. It was midnight. Dean was frantic.

"He's all I have left." He muttered, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel as he gripped it tighter. "He's the only person left in the world I really give a damn about." He ran a hand through his hair, eyes wild.

"We'll find him." Finn placated, but he was less optimistic than he had been hours ago. Suddenly, little things Sam had said and done were starting to come together to make one big depressing picture. Quinn left, and Sam's hand was shattered, no way he could ever play football again. And he'd been _good_. Better than Finn. The town he'd just moved to after the deaths of his parents was blown apart by a horrible day, and factions were now attacking what friends he had left.

Everyone's lives sucked since That Day, but it was only now that Finn started to wonder why Sam didn't try to off himself before now.

"Woah!" He yelled, and Dean jerked the wheel, pressing on the gas so they skidded to a stop three feet away from where Sam was calmly looking over the edge of the bridge he was standing on top of.

"Sammy!" Dean roared, running out of the car before it had even really stopped. He blinked in the rain that had started an hour ago, but kept his distance from his little brother, trying his best to remember the psych rotation he'd done three months ago. He'd had three suicidal patients on that rotation. Two had died.

He was not going to let his brother become a third.

Sam turned, saw Dean and Finn standing there, and looked completely confused. "Hey guys."

"Get down from there!" Finn yelled above the rain. "We've already lost Mike and Quinn and Brittney and Schue. There's no way we're losing you, too."

"It doesn't matter." Sam said, sighing, tilting his head to the side as if they were having this conversation in the hallway, the locker room, not with him standing inches away from death. "Really, it doesn't. Everyone I love dies. It's kind of a fact of life."

"I'm still here, little brother!" Dean said savagely, pounding his chest with one hand.

A ghost of a smile grace Sam's face. "You've been so good to me, Dean. And I'm upset that this is going to upset you. That's why I haven't done this for the last month, even though I feel like I'm drowning awake. Do you know that feeling, Finn? The feeling of being terrified and depressed and in agony all at once?"

Finn managed a nod. His throat was constricted by the sight of another person he loved so close to death. When was this going to stop happening?

"I thought I was over it. This drowning feeling. I almost felt alive again – all because of Glee. Because of you, bro. I was going to make it…until today."

"What happened today?" Dean asked, bewildered. Finn wondered when harried interns ever watched television or caught up on the news.

"A bunch of people from that crap church turned up at the school, telling my brother and all his gay friends to burn in hell." Finn said matter-of-factly, eyes still trained on Sam.

"Yeah. And I realized that nothing had changed. Two dozen people dead, fifty physically hurt, an entire town emotionally scarred…and there's still so much freakin' hate in this world." Sam choked, blinking on tears. "And I'm so damn tired of feeling sad and hurt all the time."

"Okay." Dean said, climbing up on the bridge next to Sam. Sam stared at him, eyes wide. "Okay," Dean said again. "You're right. You win. We'll give up together. Why not? Mom and dad are dead. Our crappy excuses for family stole all their money that was supposed to be ours. We're barely scraping by, and now I nearly have a heart attack every time you go to school, because I'm afraid my stupid little brother is going to guy because an idiot with gun has something to prove against the world." Dean reached out and snagged Sam's wet hand. Sam didn't pull away.

"Let's jump together." Dean said, holding Sam's gaze. Finn lunged forward, screaming, but his hands grabbed only air. Sam and Dean were both gone.

.***.

Finn had been looking forward to a relaxing Saturday night after the heart attack that was Friday. Dean had pulled Sam out of the river, which was his intention all along, and Finn had driven the brothers back to their apartment. Sam was sobbing in Dean's arms the whole way home.

The house had been quiet all day, strange for a house with three teenage boys in it. Kurt and Eric talked quietly in the basement most of the day, and long hours of hushed murmurs were punctuated only by quiet drum beats and Kurt's high, arching voice as they took breaks to let themselves go.

But by the evening they'd gathered themselves together. Eric had run down to the supermarket and had come home with a DVD copy of Clue, which he said, excitedly, was his absolute favorite movie.

"Let me guess," Kurt had joked as he pushed the play button, "The butler did it?"

"You'll just have to watch and see." Eric retorted, sticking out his tongue. Finn grinned, and volunteered to make the popcorn, which is why he was the one who answered the door. He was already on his feet.

The boy who stood on the doorstep looked like a bulkier, meaner version of Eric. "I know he's here." The kid said without preamble. "Mom wants him back. I need to bring him out of this perverted life style."

"Hold up," Finn said, stretching out an arm so his body completely covered the doorway. "You're not taking anyone from this house."

His mind whirled. Burt and his mother were out on a date, the first they'd gone on in a month, and they'd only gone out after repeated assurances that the three they were leaving behind would be fine alone. Of all the nights to be proven wrong…Finn would have done just about anything to have Burt's reassuring presence at his shoulder.

"Finn?" Kurt's unmistakable high voice sounded from the living room, and Finn turned around a second too late, a second too long.

"Don't come in here!" He yelled, and Eric's brother took his lapse in attention as an opportunity to duck under Finn's arm and get into the house.

Before Finn could catch him, the boy had punched Kurt in the face. Kurt fell back, landing on his injured shoulder and crying out in pain. "You're trying to send my brother to Hell! You deserve to go there! You're a freak!"

"Joshua!" Eric yelled, running in and kneeling next to Kurt, who lay in a heap on the floor, clutching his shoulder and moaning with pain. "What are you _doing_?"

"Mom wants you back. She said I have to get you away from this evil house or you'll burn in Hell." Joshua curled his hand into a fist. "I need to get you back to her, Eric. You know I do."

"You hurt my friend!" Eric yelled, his face red, eyes blazing as his hands ran over Kurt's body, trying to find something he can help. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Joshua swung out again, breaking Eric's nose.

Finn, who had been transfixed by this bizarre scene, finally found his feet again. He took one look at Kurt, huddled on the floor; at Eric, holding his bleeding nose, and knew that he was the only one here who could do anything. It was wrong, it was stereotyping, but in that instant Finn found himself stepping into the role of the man of the house.

He caught Joshua's shoulder and spun him around. "You want someone to fight, big guy? I'm right here. Didn't your momma ever teach you not to pick on kids smaller than you?"

"I need to get my brother home!" Joshua shouted, looking completely crazy. "I need to save him from your perversion!"

That was it. Finn had ten years of football, eight years of wrestling, and a year of beating up the jocks that made fun of Kurt on his side. He also had the burning of his blood every time he looked at Kurt and Eric, hurt in their own home. The kid never stood a chance.

When Finn finally kicked Joshua out, telling him never to come back again or he was calling the police, he felt dizzy, exhilarated, sick to his stomach. Numbly, he reached for the telephone, eyes sweeping over the wreaked room.

"Dean?" He said into the phone to the man who owed him a favor. "It's me, Finn. Look, I need a doctor, and I'm pretty sure these guys don't want to go all the way to the hospital. Can you help me?"

When Finn finished the brief conversation, he sat down on the floor, one hand on Kurt's shoulder, one hand on Eric's, and wondered, vaguely, if his whole life was going to be variations on the theme of his life crumbling to pieces at every turn.

**Santana and Brittney are so freaking sad. This whole story is freaking sad. **


	22. Friends

_"So no one ever told you life was gonna be this way?" **Friends Theme Song**_

_**.***.**_

**November 2010**

Dean took Sam with him, because in a day he still couldn't figure out what to do. He'd been raised in a world where psychologists were worse than lawyers, where emotional baggage was pushed under the rug, never discussed, never brought up.

When his parents died and he'd inherited his sixteen-year-old brother, he'd sworn things would be different. And they got along, both sociable, laughing people who were just as happy to stay at home watching ESPN as going out with a group. Dean gave Sam space when he wanted to go out with friends, and Sam would go up to his room whenever Dean's intern buddies stopped by for a beer or a later-night, no-holds-barred study session. He'd thought he had this whole brother/guardian thing down.

It had helped that Sam never really fell apart over their parents. There was no love lost there, really, since the Evans brothers had always been closer to each other than to the people they saw over Christmas and Spring breaks. Which is why his meltdown in October was so hard for Dean to handle.

At first it was the crying. Sudden sobs that started out of nowhere and Sam tried so hard to control. Eventually, Dean would just hold him until it was over, careful not to jostle that shattered hand.

After Quinn left, after school started again, after the Hummel kid's house had gotten spray-painted one too many times, Sam had gotten different. Withdrawn. Quiet. Words that Dean would have never, ever used to describe his brother.

And then there was the bridge.

Dean shuddered at the thought and pushed it away, shepherding a docile Sam to the car. He'd been off all day, crying, then quiet, then crying, and finally he'd passed out on the couch at two in the afternoon, physically and emotionally drained. And Dean didn't know what to do with him.

So he took him to Finn's house, because he was afraid to come home and find him in the bathtub, wrists slit, or hanging from a closet. Because he was deathly afraid of losing his brother to a sickness that he, a doctor, couldn't heal.

He owed Finn after everything the kid had done for him Friday, but when he pulled up to the Hummel house late Saturday night he couldn't help wishing that he'd had the night to try to figure out what Sam was thinking, to try to figure out if this was something he, a young doctor who worked a hundred hours a week, could handle on his own.

When he got in the door, though, with Sam trailing behind him, a ghost of his old self…well, all other thoughts went right out the window.

"What happened?" Dean gasped, looking at the hole in the wall, obviously caused by a fist, at the vase, shattered on the floor, at Finn and two slim teenagers collapse the ground. "Are you alright?"

Sam proffered his medicine bag and Dean knelt on the floor. "You and Sam go in the kitchen." Dean snapped at Finn, all business. He didn't need anyone getting in his way.

"No!" One of the boys said, and Dean could only assume this was Kurt, who Sam had spoken of often because his brother was so in awe of the gay kid's confidence. He wasn't confident now as he cradled a limp arm with one hand, a bruise blooming dark on his face.

"This is Dean, Kurt. He's Sam's brother. He's a doctor." Kurt still looked uncertain, but he unfurled his fingers when Finn said, "It's either him or the hospital, bro. Your choice."

"Let him, Kurt." The other boy said, and Sam whispered helpfully that his name was Eric. The Eric that was all over the news. The one who, supposedly, set off the shooters by coming out of the closet. Not for the first time since That Day in October, Dean prayed that those two were in a special place in Hell.

He moved over to Eric first, as Finn and Sam picked up shards of glass and then gravitated over to the kitchen. Dean could hear the tell-tale sounds of a kettle being put on. His mother had had a theory that tea cures everything...

"Ended up on the wrong side of a fight?" Dean asked quietly, trying to keep his voice upbeat as he looked in the boy's eyes for signs of a concussion. He had more bruises on his face than Kurt, and was half-hunched over even in a sitting position, making Dean suspect hurt ribs. "They didn't break into your house, did they?"

"It was my brother." Eric said dully, and Kurt's protective look told him not to go any further into this.

"With brothers like that…" Dean said, trailing off when he pulled up Eric's shirt. Bruises, old ones, marred his pale skin. "When is this from?"

"He just said that his brother -" Kurt began.

"These are at least a week old, and they're worse than what would have happened in a couple of seconds with Finn here. How many people hurt you?"

"Eric?" Kurt asked, eyebrows drawing together. "Did something happen?"

"Just Karofsky and Azimo." Eric muttered, yanking his shirt back down. "Caught up to me the other day. Their schpeel was unoriginal. Blamed me for their friend's deaths, blah, blah, blah."

"You got a broken rib, kid. That could've been dangerous." And must've hurt like heck. Dean pulled out some painkillers and pushed them into Kurt's hand. He'd make sure his boyfriend took them. "And what's _that_?"

Eric jerked his hand away, but not before Dean had already grabbed it. His hands were almost twice as big as Eric's, but he made sure to be gentle as he peeled away an already frayed Band-Aid.

Kurt's gasp of surprise brought Finn and Sam in from the kitchen. Dean could only stare at the word carved into the back of this kid's hand. FAG. "Damnit," he whispered, pulling antiseptic out and holding the kid's hand rougher than he meant to. He was shaking with anger.

"Eric…" Finn began, starting forward, and Dean turned to him. His expression must have been terrible, because it made Finn take a step backwards.

"Make some tea, Finn. We'll talk about this later."

.***.

After being banished to the kitchen a second time, Finn paced around it, then took a swing at the wall above the sink. Put a nice hole in it, too.

"Hey!" Sam said, sounding really angry from his place at the counter. Finn turned in time to see Sam's hand shaking as he tried to spread peanut butter on the Wonder Bread. "Don't do that." Sam warned, the knife slipping out of his hand and clattering to the floor between them. "You don't go messing up your hands for the hell of it."

"Didn't you see?" Finn demanded, surging forward, getting in Sam's face because, fuck, somebody needed to. Someone needed to remind Sam that his life wasn't the only one that was screwed up. But Finn wasn't mad at Sam. Not really. The things he was mad about were way more intangible than that – prejudice, irrational anger, the human need for a scapegoat. Still, he loomed over the other boy, and was happy to see a look of defiance on his face. Good. At least Sam was feeling something.

"Nothing has changed." Finn raged, "Those two kids did what they did out of hate, and anger, and they rationalized it with their rants against gays. After all the media, after we'd all been through the same thing, I thought…"

"We're not going to change overnight." Sam said, the tension between them gone. Now they were both angry at those intangibles.

"Except we did. It's like the whole town took up the cause after Levin and Leads died. There was no 'burn in Hell, fags' signs before all this. There was no groups of people jumping a sweet kid like Eric and carving up his hand."

Sam sighed. This was exactly why he thought life was just too much for him. "I don't know what to tell you, Finn, except that you've gotta believe in people. In the human spirit or whatever. Not everyone's crazy. There's a lot of national coverage of Lima right now, and a lot of people out there aren't liking what they're seeing."

"That's not going to help Eric now." Finn pointed out, "And it's not going to help Kurt, or anyone else who was thinking about coming out of the closet any time soon."

And Sam…found he didn't have an answer for that.

.***.

"Why'd you hide your hand?"

"Kurt, what would you have done if I'd told you?"

"Made sure it didn't get infected? Bring you to the hospital and see if there was a way -"

"A way to what? Make sure that I didn't remember I was a fag every time I look at my fucking hand?"

"Eric…"

"Whatever, Kurt. I'm just tired."

"I'm sorry about your brother."

"Josh and I were never close."

"Still. I'm sorry. I know what it's like when someone who's supposed to be your brother says that to you."

"Whatever. Thanks."

"And you're not a fag."

Eric leaned over in the dark and brushed his lips against Kurt's, who deepened the kiss to something deeper, more passionate, more desperate. Eric found out in that moment that he didn't care if the whole world thought he was a fag. As long as Kurt was by himself, telling him that he may like guys but that didn't make him worthy of ridicule, Eric thought he'd be okay.

.***.

Kurt went up to visit his mother the next day. He suspected that the peace, the comfort he felt sitting in front of his mother's grave was akin to the bliss religious people claimed came over them when walking into a house of worship.

"Hey, mom." He said, trudging up to the grave. "I know I haven't been here in a while. Things are kind of crazy. I got shot, and this guy saved me from being killed. Eric. You'd like him, mom. He's…he's truly amazing. Dad and Finn's mom were pretty great about it, too. He's living with us now."

A coughing fit to his right made Kurt look up. The cemetery was rarely deserted, but usually people weren't nearby when he was talking to his mother. He broke off mid-stream when he saw the teen, doubled over on a newer plot, one too new to even have a headstone.

It occurred to him that this could be someone who was related to one of the victims of That Day. So he went over to him.

"Hello," Kurt said awkwardly. He didn't like talking to crying people even at the best of times. He liked talking to crying strangers even less.

The boy, older than Kurt by a year or two, passed a hand over his eyes, wiping the tears away. He took a deep breath, then managed a small smile for Kurt. "Hi."

"Is everything alright?"

The boy laughed, a hysterical jag that made him double over again. When he stood up, his face was beet red, his eyes flashing. "Everything's just peachy."

"Who was it?" Kurt asked, nodding to the plot the boy was standing in front of. "Your friend?"

"Brother." The teen said, tilting his head to study Kurt. "Younger. He was…he was my best friend."

"Was he killed at the school?" Kurt whispered, the words nearly getting lost in the cold November wind.

"You could say that." The boy cut his eyes to Kurt once more, than stared straight ahead, hands balling to fists at his sides. "He was…my brother was Brad Levin."

Kurt took an instinctive step backwards, the wounds that had stopped hurting a couple of weeks ago throbbing again. How could he not notice the same deep brown eyes, the same square jaw and high cheekbones that haunted his dreams? "I gotta go." He said, backing away as if being a murderer was something hereditary, was in this guy's genes, but hey, his brother had come to school to kill homos, and anything could happen these days.

The teen, who would always just be the brother of Brad Levin, watched him books it. "Yeah," he said, looking down at the plot where, somewhere underneath, the little brother he'd adored lay rotting, unmourned and hated, "Yeah, that's what they all say."

.***.

Rachel flounced into the chair in Mrs. Pillsbury's office. She'd been on her way to Calculus, but surely that could wait. This was the first time in a month that she'd passed by Guidance and it wasn't full to bursting with grieving kids. "What the heck am I supposed to do, Mrs. Pillsbury?"

The woman twisted her mouth sympathetically. Losing Will had been one of the most devastating experiences of her life, so much so that, if it hadn't been for the kids, she probably would have never been able to bring herself to go back to the school. The only silver lining was that, because she had lost someone the whole school knew she loved, students talked to her at length about their own grief.

And in the past month, she'd found that old sayings really were true. Misery loves company.

"Well, Rachel, I know it's been a difficult month, but the important thing to remember is to stay positive. I know it doesn't seem like we'll be getting through his right now – and I know that Glee lost some very important members –"

"What are you talking about?" Rachel crossed her arms over her chest, her crinkled brow smoothing. "Oh. The shootings. No, it's not about that anymore, though I did get some pretty great songs out of the whole thing."

And Rachel wondered why people thought she was insensitive. "Then what are you worried about?" Emma asked. Maybe she was insensitive, too, but what she really needed right not was to counsel someone about something other than how to deal with a lifelong disability or the loss of a best friend.

"College. I mean, the academics around here are totally slacking. They still haven't found a teacher to take of Schue's old Spanish classes."

"People are reluctant to come to Lima, Rachel. You know that."

"Yeah, well, this is ruining my Senior year." It wasn't surprising that Rachel, always one for dramatics, had tears in her eyes. "I mean, after Brittney and Mike died and Mr. Schuester…I couldn't believe that he died, and then there wasn't even a Glee club to deal with all the emotions. But I really need to get out of Lima, Mrs. Pillsbury, and I always thought I'd do it with college."

"You're afraid that your transcript won't hold up? That your SAT scores won't be up to par?" Emma asked sympathetically, nodding along with the distraught girl.

"No. I mean, yeah, but I got a 2040 on the SAT last Spring and…it's not perfect, but math is really not my thing. Anyway, I really wanted to go to Julliard. Or maybe Tisch?"

"I'd expect nothing less of you, Rachel." Emma pursed her lips. "You know…there are a couple of great private schools just outside of Lima. Dalton's is all boys, of course, but there's a couple of prep schools for girls."

"Leave McKinley?" Rachel gaped at her, then actually thought about the idea. Leave the hallways that were either too loud or way, way too quiet. Leave the hallways that were filled with crutches, casts, bandages, and, worse, emotional trauma. Leave kids that cried at the drop of a pin, or were filled with so much pent-up rage that sometimes Rachel was sure there'd be another shooting before the end of the year.

Leave, and go somewhere better. Somewhere different. Somewhere that could get her to her dreams.

And suddenly Rachel, for the first time in her life, had absolutely no idea what she was going to do.

**I mean, think about it. Columbine happened with something like 20 days left on the school calander. Even Virginia Tech was Springtime. What if everything went down in October? How could you go through the rest of the year?**


	23. Time Heals Everything

_"Time heals everything: Tuesday. Thursday. Time heals everything: April. August. If I'm patient the break will mend, and one fine morning the hurt will end." **Mack & Mabel**_

_**.***.**_

**Thanksgiving 2010**

There are a couple of important things that happened that frigid Thanksgiving that changed things, that made everyone think that, maybe, just maybe, things weren't as bad as they seemed. They could move on. That maybe, just maybe, time could heal everything.

For one, Puck made a pact with the jocks, which made Kurt's and, especially, Eric's lives so much easier from then on. This was after Puck saw Eric's hand, after he heard the story of how it had happened to the boy – six on one, seven on one, and the kid wasn't even an athlete. He didn't even have a chance.

There had been a week where Puck's only steady companion was Eric, when he'd wake up in the dark of the night, pillow over his mouth to muffle his screams, and hear the kid's high, soothing voice from across the hospital room. So, yeah, this was his business. Or at least he made it his business when he barged into Joe's, the dive restaurant that the jocks hung around, and confronted Karofsky and Azimo and all the others.

"You think it's okay to jump a kid walking by himself?" Puck snarled, grabbing Karofsky's collar and pulling him up until they were both standing. "You think it's okay to carve words into his body?"

"What are you _on_, Puckerman?" Karofsky yelled, jerking out of Puck's grip. "Those fags killed Mike Chang and your singing teacher and that hot cheerleader chick. Don't you think they deserve it?"

Puck was floored by this. He'd expected a fight, had come for a fight, but this lie, slipping so easily from this guy's mouth anyone else might have mistaken it for truth, made him angrier than ever.

"I was there, Karofsky!" He shoved the other boy, but only so he could see past him to the table of spectators, "All of you! I was there – it wasn't Eric who killed anyone, or Kurt. It's not the fucking homosexuals who are shooting up schools. They were the victims! They were both shot! You guys – all of you – not hurt at all. No wounds, no stitches, no broken bones."

Two boys had the decency to look at the table, but Puck was undeterred by this small act of shame. "I got shot-" he lifted his shirt enough so that the place the bullet was, still red and angry, was exposed, and more looked away, "Stopping the guys who actually shot up the school and killed your friends." The football team had lost Jackson, a huge linebacker with a personality and heart as big as his body.

"I'm sorry that anyone had to die, and so's Eric. Sawyer, I'm sorry about your brother." The lanky Senior running back looked down at his hands, probably thinking about the younger Sawyer that used to hang on his every word, used to want to be just like him until a ricocheting bullet tore up the kid's insides. "But can't you see that it's not Eric's fault?"

"What do you want from us, Puckerman?" Azimo didn't sound angry, he just sounded sad, and Puck remembered that the big black guy had taken a liking to little Sawyer, had been showing him the ropes out on the football field the day before the shooting.

"Just leave them alone. Don't jump Eric in the parking lot. Don't shove Kurt into the fucking supply closet. Just…stop."

"Or what?" Karofsky sneered.

"Or I'll kick your ass."

All of the jocks looked over at Sawyer, who's huge hands were curled into fists. He was glaring at Karofsky, "Lay off the fags, or I can show you exactly what a bullet in the side would feel like."

And that seemed like the appropriate place for Puck to make his exit.

.***.

Dean was pretending to study when Sam came back from his first appointment with a shrink. He let his younger brother make a sandwich for himself and sit down at the table before laying into him. "How was it?"

"Why are we doing this, Dean?" The words were quiet, tired, "Can you even afford therapy?"

Not on his meager salary as an intern. "The school's paying for it." If they hadn't…well, Dean needed food a lot less than Sam needed to stay alive. "Look, I just…I don't know what else to do, Sammy. Do you think this might…help?"

"Do I think we'll be jumping off bridges any time soon?" There was a note of desperation in Sam's voice now, as the kid valiantly tried to cling to the edges of sanity. "Nah, bro. Maybe this will help. I just need to…I need to talk it out, you know? About mom and dad, and Quinn, and the shooting." He gestured at his arm. The cast wasn't coming off until Christmas.

Dean felt hurt for half a second – after all, he was supposed to be the one fixing Sam, not some stranger with a degree to shrink his brain – but shrugged it off. Anything to keep the kid breathing. "On a different subject, then…"

Sam immediately brightened at the prospect of a different subject.

"Tomorrow's turkey day, dude. I don't have to work the whole afternoon."

"We can't play football."

"No, not with your hand like that."

"You can't cook worth a damn."

"Thanks for pointing that out."

Sam suddenly smiled, and the sight was a welcoming one for his harried big brother. "Sounds like a perfect day to me."

.***.

Eric rolled out of bed and crawled over Kurt's still-sleeping body to glance at the alarm clock. 6:20. Damn, why was he up so early?

As quietly as he could, he pulled on a pair of loose shorts and a T-shirt and made his way towards the kitchen, thinking about a glass of water before a run, and then maybe another hour of sleep. He was still rubbing his eyes when he walked in on the biggest array of food he'd ever seen in his life.

"Wow." He said, stunned by the sheer enormity of the spread laid out before him.

"What, you never seen Thanksgiving before?" Eric could have kicked himself when Burt looked at him over the stuffing. Thanksgiving. The whole reason why he wasn't in school already.

He tried to play it cool, like he hadn't forgotten about the holiday at all. "Just not enough of it to feed a third world country…for about a decade." He let out a low whistle, mindful of the still-slumbering household.

"Well, we got three teenage boys in this house, and even though Kurt eats…well, about nothing...both you and Finn seem to be hell-bent eating us out of house and home."

Eric felt his face get hot, and he started to apologize when Burt saw his face and cut him off. "Don't even start with that. I like having an audience that appreciates my cuisine. Kurt keeps telling me to go healthy, but who doesn't love fried stuff? You'd never make any friends if you serve people grass and rabbit food."

"I totally agree. Is that deep fryer for the turkey?" Eric leaned against the counter, smirking, and didn't even attempt to get out of the way of the gentle swat Kurt's father aimed at him. And maybe he actually was healing, like the doctors had promised, because his bruises didn't scream out in pain at the contact.

Burt continued to add whatever mystery ingredients he was adding to the stuffing while Eric pulled out some lettuce, carrots, cucumbers, onions, because if there wasn't a salad on the table Kurt might just lose whatever cool he'd managed to gather up for himself in the past month.

"So, no calls from your family about the holidays?" Burt's tone was too casual for it to be true, and Eric recognized this questions as one the older Hummel had been waiting to ask for a while now.

"No." Eric thought about Joshua barging in, about his nose that was still sore and the eyes that were still dark with bruises, and wasn't sorry for the lack of communication. Still, he often wondered how long he could encroach on the Hummel's charity before it was clear he had to hit the road.

"Well, I can't say that's any great loss." Eric looked up and Burt plowed forward, "I know they're you're blood, but I wouldn't feel comfortable with you going back to an environment with that much hate. It's not right what your mother and that church are saying about you gays."

Eric smiled thinly, "Thanks for saying that, Mr. Hummel. Sometimes I think me and Kurt forget that those people are just the minority. A really, really loud minority."

"Yeah, most of us just don't care." Finn said, coming up behind Eric, intent on getting to the fridge and food. "Or, at least, we've worked on not caring."

"At least you try." Burt admitted, and then turned to Eric. "Look, you and Kurt both have this year and next left in high school, right? That's not so long. And the house is pretty big. One more person more or less should fit in just fine."

A slow smile was spreading over Eric's before Burt even finished. "You mean I can stay?"

"Well, Carol and I will expect you to follow the same rules as the boys – no partying, no going out with girls – or boys, as the case may be – unless they're planning on having a civilized dinner once in a while. I suppose I can't stop you from dating my son, but keep it PG under my roof, alright?"

"Mr. Hummel, this is so…you have no idea how much this means to me." He must have looked a sorry picture, a mostly-grown boy with bruises across his face on the verge of tears in a sunny kitchen on Thanksgiving morning, and Finn wrapped an arm around his neck for just that reason.

"You know football, right?"

"Sure, I've seen all of your games, Finn."

Finn winced, "Right, band, I keep forgetting." Weird, that both the band's and Glee's directors had been taken out in the bullets that destroyed the school. "Well, me and Puck kind of have this tradition…"

"Don't tell me you guys have a turkey bowl!" Burt sounded so happy that both Finn and Eric turned to gape at him.

"No way have you ever gotten Kurt out on a football field." Eric said, eyebrows raising into his hairline at the thought.

"Hey, I'm a good kicker." Kurt protested, walking in before his hair had its usual product-induced shine. "You guys want to get a game going this afternoon?"

Finn almost fell to the ground from the shock of Kurt proposing a football game. Kurt, who'd been known to launch into long diatribes about the dangers of the sport as soon as Finn reached for the remote for Monday Night Football. He said the only logical thing he could think of. "Can you play in a cast?"

Kurt rolled his eyes and raised his cast-encased arm. "Are you kidding? This is my get-out-of-jail-free card. I'll play cheerleader. Or score-keeper."

Eric smiled, and, impulsively, leaned across the counter and planted a kiss on Kurt's cheek. "Your dad just invited me to stay here until we graduate." He said, unable to contain his joy. He tempered in down a little when he thought of something else. "As long as you want me to."

"Of course I do!" Kurt turned his head and kissed Eric full on the mouth (over the too-loud beating of his heart, Eric heard Burt say, quite loudly, that he was putting the two of them in separate rooms.) "You're so important to me. You saved my life, and I could never have gotten through this past month without you."

"Right back at you, babe."

.***.

That afternoon, in between stuffing themselves with turkey and lounging around over desserts and coffee, they all played football.

Kurt, true to this word, was scorekeeper. Eric, still bandaged, was going against Puck, also still bandaged (the good thing about having invalids on the team was that two-hand-touch _never_ became more than two-hand-touch.) Sam showed up, and Finn went over to him and figured out in a quick look what Dean still wouldn't bring himself to believe – Sam wasn't a hundred percent, and maybe would never be the same boy he'd been before that day in October, but he was not suicidal. Sam ended up on Eric's team, and they used the blond's brother as quarterback.

And then there were the girls. Santana, showing up with Rachel near the end of what they'd dubbed the first quarter. Santana joined Finn's team and turned out to be a beast on the field. Rachel wandered over to Kurt.

"I'm transferring from McKinley next week." She said, looking straight ahead, not really seeing the field. Kurt turned, though; turned so fast his neck hurt from the motion.

"What? Why?"

"The only reason to stay was the Glee club, and without Mr. Schuester…well, it's falling apart, Kurt, you have to admit that. And the classes are not what they used to be, not that they were top notch before, and the kids…you got hurt, you don't know what it's like for those of us who didn't." She saw his murderous expression and winced. "Okay, so that's not the smartest thing to say, but you get my point, you know it's true."

"So you're running away just like Quinn." Kurt said flatly. He didn't know why the departure of one of the biggest bitches in the school, and his own personal pain in the ass, should affect him like this, but he was mad as hell.

"No! Kurt, you don't get it. You have Eric, and Finn. There's nothing keeping me here, and there's so much more out there, and I have to get over the shooting. I can't do that in Lima. Everything froze in October, and it hasn't even begun to thaw yet."

She touched his shoulder, the one that wasn't injured, and smiled slightly. "Did you hear about Puck and the jocks? Apparently, he made a deal with them. They're going to stop harassing you and Eric."

"Really?" Kurt brightened at that, sneaking a glance at Puck, who had just caught a perfectly thrown ball from Finn and was dancing in the end zone. "That's…kind."

"Maybe things will work out for all of us." Rachel said, and Kurt found in that instant that he could believe her. Things were changing, everyone was moving on, or forward, or away, and as Kurt looked out over the football field filled with the walking wounded, he began to believe what all those shrinks and professors and media people had been saying for the past month. Years from now, the memory of what had happened to students and teachers and innocents in October of his Junior year may still sting, smart, but it wouldn't bleed like an open wound. He was figuring out, on that beautiful Thanksgiving morning with the world laid out open and ready before him, that time heals everything.

.***.

**Excerpt from TIME magazine, Thanksgiving issue 2010**

**LIMA – **Everyone knows the story of the town that was rocked by a devastating school shooting this past October, but fewer know of the strides they are making to overcome the hatred and devastation.

"People underestimate kids." Officer Kelvin of the Lima Police Force said. "These guys are bouncing back. The school is up and running, sports are going strong. Do I think they're healing? Sure. I think we're all beginning to heal."

Emma Pillsbury, the guidance councilor, offers a difference perspective. "I was very close to one of the teachers killed in the shooting. A lot of these kids lost friends, or siblings, or teammates. We're all dealing with it together. The kids have a sign-up sheet so they can carpool to physical therapy. Signing casts has become an art. There's still life at this school, no matter how much a couple of kids tried to snuff it out."

It's just a few small steps in the right direction, and Lima will never forget the two dozen people killed on October 7th, but rest assured this community is coming together, hoping together, and they are moving towards a future with the same goal as every other town in America – to be better than they were in the past.

.

**The End**

**.**

There are some people in this world who can't get over hate, who don't understand that on the fundemental level, the spiritual level, the biological level, we are all made of the same stuff, we all have the same shit to deal with. And then there are those people who go out of their way to make things better for others (like Puck in this story, like Burt Hummel). There's a couple major decisions everyone has to make in their life, and this is one of the most important ones: spread the hate or spread the love?

What will you do to change the future?

peace,  
us


End file.
